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LOS  ANGELLo 
^>TATE  NORMAL  SCHOOl 


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j^.'Vi 


PERSONALITY  IN   EDUCATION 


<?"/ 


P_ERSONALITY 

"^  IN 

EDUCATION 


BY 
JAMES  P.  CONOVER 

(Master  in  St.  Paul's  School,  Concord,  N.  H.) 


.  873& 


NEW  YORK 
MOFFAT,  YARD  AND  COMPANY 

1908 


Copyright,  1908,  by 
MOFFAT,  YARD  AND  COMPANY 


All  Eights  Eeserved 
Published,  October,  1908 


u 


CONTENTS 


Introduction 

FAOK 

ix 

I. 

The  Teacher 

1 

II. 

The  Child 

31 

III. 

The  Nursery 

45 

IV. 

School    . 

.      66 

V. 

Some  Questions  op  Ext 

•ENSE 

95 

VI. 

The  Playground  . 

.     104 

VII. 

Discipline 

.    118 

VIII. 

The  Class 

.    155 

IX. 

Classwork     . 

.    180 

X. 

Examinations 

.    209 

XI. 

Religion  in  the  School 

.    225 

XII. 

College 

,           , 

.    254 

INTRODUCTION 

The  essays  in  this  book  are  the  observa- 
tions of  a  workman,  recorded  from  time  to 
time  amid  the  noise  and  business  of  the 
shop.  For  this  reason  they  should  be 
worth  reading.  A  review  of  the  collection 
has  disclosed  a  certain  amount  of  repeti- 
tion arising  from  the  fact  that  the  different 
subjects  were  treated  at  different  times  as 
complete  in  themselves  and  not  parts  of  a 
whole ;  but  this  review  has  also  disclosed  a 
theme  throughout  which  the  writer  has  ven- 
tured to  call  "  Personality  in  Education." 

An  apology  is  certainly  due  to  so  great  a 
subject  for  dragging  it  into  the  atmosphere 
of  machinery  and  oil  which  pervades  these 
pages.  Therefore,  the  writer  doffs  his  cap 
while  he  points  to  his  overalls  and  says, 
* '  Please  let  me  have  my  hour  of  play  with- 
out a  change  of  clothes."  A  little  playful- 
ness in  the  shop  is  prime  oil  for  the  ma- 
chinery of  the  school. 

It  is  hoped,  indeed,  that  the  ^'  play  "  of 


X  INTRODUCTION 

pliilosopliy  to  be  found  here  will  bring  into 
the  study,  the  schoolroom,  and  the  home 
something  of  the  life  for  which  all  method 
exists.  There  is  always  present  the  danger 
of  too  much  trust  in  method.  As  experi- 
ence increases,  the  true  workman  perfects 
his  method,  but  not  without  proportion- 
ately perfecting  himself.  In  fact,  * '  life  in 
method  "  is  a  phrase  that  very  nearly  de- 
scribes the  unconscious  effort  underlying 
these  essays. 

Young  teachers  fresh  from  college  or 
seminary  enter  their  work  as  if  fully 
equipped.  They  think  they  have  all  the 
best  methods  at  their  fingers'  ends,  and 
they  wonder  why  it  is  that  their  scholars 
do  not  at  once  glow  with  their  own  enthu- 
siasm. Even  the  distance  of  a  quarter  of 
a  century  cannot  blot  out  the  feeling  of 
injured  pride  with  which  the  writer  con- 
templates in  the  light  of  his  after  expe- 
rience how  thoroughly  he  made  a  fool  of 
himself.  That,  no  doubt,  is  all  very  good 
discipline  for  the  teacher,  but  hardly  so 
good  for  the  child.  And  it  does  seem  as  if 
schools  should  more  fully  realize  their  re- 
sponsibilities to  young  teachers;  should 
realize  their  duty  to  give  beginners  in  this 


*     INTRODUCTION  xi 

profession  the  same  kind  of  professional 
help  which  is  given  to  young  doctors  and 
lawyers.  It  is  an  amazing  thing  that, 
whereas  beginners  in  tlie  practice  of  med- 
icine and  law  are  considered  of  little  ac- 
count till  they  have  had  practice  under  ex- 
perienced guidance,  beginners  among  the 
clergy  and  teaching  professions  in  general 
are,  as  a  rule,  at  once  launched  into  a  ' '  sea 
of  troubles  "  on  which  they  are  to  pilot 
themselves  and  their  charges  to  safety. 
There  can  be  no  reason  for  this  except 
that,  in  the  popular  conception,  a  man's 
body  and  pocket  are  of  more  value  and  of  , 

more  delicate  structure  than  his  mind  and  .^><:: 
heart,  or  even  than  his  soul;  for  to  the 
teacher  especially  belongs  the  training  of 
the  whole  man,  the  fruits  of  which  are  to 
be  seen  primarily  in  that  distinctive  life 
of  man  which  we  call  the  soul. 

Let  us  hope  that  the  time  is  not  far  away 
when  the  first  duty  of  the  school  will  be  not 
only  a  provision  for  the  personal  upbuikl- 
ing  of  every  teacher,  but  also  for  a  system 
by  which  each  inexperienced  man  will  be 
given  his  early  practice  under  the  same 
kind  of  supervision  which  the  young  doctor 
gets  at  the  hospital. 


xii  •  INTRODUCTION 

*'  Personality  "  being  the  theme  of  this 
book,  the  writer  has  made  free  use  of  quo- 
tation. President  Hyde  of  Bowdoin,  and 
Dr.  Briggs,  formerly  dean  of  Harvard, 
are  inspiring  leaders  to  all  teachers  who 
have  been  fortunate  enough  to  know  them 
or  even  to  read  their  words  to  men  and 
women  of  our  profession. 

Edward  Thring's  book  on  the  "  Theory 
and  Practice  of  Teaching  "  has  been  a 
handbook  to  some  of  us  who  were  start- 
ing our  labors  when  Uppingham  was  first 
mourning  the  loss  of  its  great  head-master. 

The  writer  indeed  claims  no  originality, 
especially  while  he  still  works  and  writes 
on  the  ground  so  thoroughly  saturated 
with  the  life  of  our  own  great  school- 
master, Henry  Augustus  Coit. 

The  thanks  of  the  writer  are  due  to 
the  Eev.  Latta  Griswold,  of  St.  George's 
School,  Newport,  E.  I.,  for  the  reading  and 
correcting  of  proofs. 

St.  Paul's  School,  Concord,  N.  H., 
October  1,  1908. 


PERSONALITY   IN   EDUCATION 


THE   TEACHER 

.  873£> 

TO  teach  the  child  we  must  have  a 
teacher.  Though  this  is  a  self-evi- 
dent proposition,  it  is  not  always  duly  con- 
sidered. There  have  been  times  in  the  de- 
velopment of  the  nation's  life  when  little 
account  was  made  of  the  teacher.  Some 
of  us  may  remember  that,  comparatively 
speaking, ' '  any  one  was  good  enough  to  be 
a  teacher."  It  is  now,  however,  one  of  the 
>  encouraging  signs  of  the  times  in  Amer- 
ica that  the  teacher  is  fast  coming  to  his 
own. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  in  itself 
teaching  is  a  great  profession.  When  this 
is  said,  it  is  of  course  assumed  that  by 
**  teaching  "  is  implied  the  moulding  of 
character.  When  souls  are  being  tried  out 
by  fighting  the  enemies  of  our  country,  or 


^ 


^ 


2         PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

by  the  excitement  and  work  of  the  pioneer, 
the  teacher  is  a  small  factor  in  the  land ;  he 
is  considered  the  weakling  of  the  commu- 
nity. But  as  life  becomes  less  intense,  and 
the  stream  becomes  broader,  the  deep  chan- 
nels are  not  so  evident,  and  pilots  are  in 
demand.  In  the  sunny  and  often  shallow 
waters  of  peace,  it  is  to  the  teacher  that  we 
look  more  and  more  for  guidance  and  dis- 
cipline, lest  we  arrive  not  at  the  fair  ocean 
of  God's  love.  The  institutional  church  no 
longer  controls  the  supply ;  in  our  day  men 
and  women  from  all  quarters  are  awaken- 
ing to  the  nobleness  of  the  profession,  and 
in  ever  increasing  numbers  are  arising  to 
obey  the  command  ' '  Go,  teach. ' '  Further- 
more, they  are  discovering  that  girls  and 
boys  have  for  them  a  more  enduring  in- 
terest than  stocks  or  merchandise,  and 
they  are  finding  that  cultivation  and  re- 
finement in  themselves  have  no  truer  or 
more  satisfactory  expression  than  in  their 
reproduction  in  the  next  generation.  Noth- 
ing is  so  fime  in  this  world  as  human  life; 
so  it  may  well  be  said  that  of  all  profes- 
sions none  is  so  fine  as  that  which  has  for 
its  object  the  proper  training  and  develop- 
ment of  that  life,  and  no  man  may  look 


THE  TEACHER  8 

with  such  confidence  as  the  teacher  for  the 
high  award. 

Let  us,  then,  who  are  teachers,  be  sure 
that  we  rise  to  an  appreciation  of  the 
greatness  of  our  vocation.  Our  standard 
of  private  life  as  well  as  of  public  service 
should  be  nothing  short  of  that  of  the 
Great  Teacher  Himself.  For  after  all  im- 
provements in  books,  methods,  and  ap- 
pliances, the  teacher  is  the  one  abso- 
lute requisite,  and  all  true  advance  must 
go  through  him;  he  must  ever  be  the  ex- 
ponent of  what  he  is  teaching.  This  is  a 
New  Testament  axiom  about  teachers ;  yet 
many  fail  to  appreciate  its  far-reaching 
application.  The  public  are  perceiving, 
however,  something  of  its  force  iu 
the  fact  that  children  are  learning  in 
our  public  schools,  from  which  religion 
has  been  excluded,  much  of  the  es 
sence  of  religion,  through  the  personal- 
ity of  their  teachers;  and  from  all  the 
great  educators  comes  steadily  the  call 
for  the  teacher  of  strong  and  uplifting 
personality. 

President  Hyde,  in  "  The  College  Man 
and  College  Woman,"  writes:  *'  Some 
people  can  teach  school  and  others  can't. 


\ 


4        PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

Some  teachers  have  good  order,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course,  as  soon  as  they  set  their  feet 
in  a  school  classroom.  Other  teachers  can 
never  get  anything  more  than  the  outward 
semblance  of  decorum,  try  as  hard  as  they 
will ;  and  often  cannot  get  even  that.  Some 
teachers  the  scholars  all  love.  Other  teach- 
ers they  all  hate.  Some  teachers  a  super- 
intendent or  president  will  jump  at  the 
chance  to  secure  after  a  five  minutes '  inter- 
view. Others,  equally  scholarly,  equally 
experienced,  equally  well  equipped  with 
formal  recommendations,  go  wandering 
from  agency  to  agency,  from  one  vacant 
place  to  another,  only  to  find  that  some 
other  applicant  has  secured  or  is  about  to 
secure  the  coveted  position. 

' '  For  nearly  twenty  years  I  have  had  to 
employ  teachers  every  year,  and  to  recom- 
mend teachers  to  others.  I  have  seen  many 
succeed  and  some  fail.  But  I  have  never 
seen  success  that  could  be  accounted  for  by 
scholarship  and  training  alone.  I  have 
never  seen  a  failure  that  I  could  not  ac- 
count for  on  other  grounds.  What  is  it 
then  that  makes  one  teacher  popular,  suc- 
cessful, wanted  in  a  dozen  different  places ; 
and  another  equally  well  trained,  equally 


THE  TEACHER  6 

experienced,  a  dismal  failure  where  be  is, 
and  wanted  nowhere  else? 

*'  The  one  word  that  covers  all  these^ 
qualities  is  personality." 

One  may  say  to  all  this, ' '  Very  true ;  but 
personality  is  hereditary." 

"  Yes  and  no  both." 

It  is  true,  no  doubt,  that  personality  is 
hereditary,  and  that  men  and  women  of 
good  stock  make  the  best  teachers.  But  it 
is  also  true  that  personality  is  largely  a 
matter  in  our  own  hands,  and  a  diligent  ap- 
plication to  things  that  count  in  our  pro- 
fession always  has  its  reward.  The  teacher 
has  this  advantage  over  the  other  profes- 
sional man:  namely,  that  his  critics  are 
constantly  at  hand.  His  class  is  a  mir-  X 
ror  in  which  he  may  see  himself  for  the 
looking.  As  he  polishes  it,  he  is  sure  to 
get,  now  and  then,  a  grotesque  image  of 
himself,  for  which,  if  he  is  wise,  he  is  duly 
thankful.  Let  no  good  man,  then,  despair. 
We  have  seen  many  men  turn  early  failure 
to  years  of  happy  success.  It  is,  therefore, 
to  my  own  personality  that  I  must  give 
first  place. 

Now  for  some  of  the  essentials  in  this 
personality.    The  first  of  these  is  undoubt- 


6        PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

edly  truth.  The  second,  sympathy,  or,  to 
state  it  more  broadly,  unselfishness.  While 
>Dean  of  Harvard  Dr.  Briggs  wrote  from 
his  wide  experience :  ' '  No  school  or  col- 
lege discipline  can  be  perfect;  but  school 
and  college  discipline  become  more  nearly 
perfect  according  as  the  teachers  possess, 
beside  strong  character,  unquestioned  sym- 
pathy with  young  people  and  unquestioned 
integrity.  When  I  say,  '  unquestioned,'  I 
imply  tact,  courtesy,  and  possibly  humor; 
for  without  at  least  the  first  of  these  quali- 
ties no  sympathy  can  be  unquestioned,  and 
without  the  others  some  sympathy  misses 
fire.  Tact,  courtesy,  and  a  sense  of  humor 
are  in  most  of  us  intermittent,  and  hence 
some  of  our  failures.  Men  may  be  able, 
upright,  and  genuinely  sympathetic,  yet 
quite  unable  to  make  young  people  know 
their  sympathy  or  even  feel  their  upright- 
ness, except  on  long  acquaintance.  Such 
men  are,  among  young  people,  ineffective. 
A  just  teacher  may  be  hated  and  an  unjust 
teacher  loved,  if  the  just  man  cannot  show 
sympathy  at  short  notice  and  the  unjust 
man  cannot  help  showing  it.  .  .  . 

''  In  teachers  of  boys  ready  sympathy 
and  absolute  straightforwardness  are  so 


THE  TEACHER  7 

important,  that  I,  for  one,  place  them  above 
high  scholarship.  .  .  .  The  difficulty  is 
that,  though  no  teacher  can  have  learned 
too  much,  yet  the  love  of  learning  may  un- 
fit a  man  to  be  a  teacher  of  boys.  .  .  .  The 
modern  schoolmaster's  work  is  vastly  more 
than  having  or  even  imparting  knowledge. 
It  penetrates  and  compasses  the  boy's 
whole  living ;  it  cannot  be  done  without  en- 
thusiastic drudgery  in  small  and  unlearned 
things,  without  a  devotion  to  commonplace 
details,  such  as  characterizes  a  good 
mother's  care  of  a  young  child,  without 
what  a  man  of  remote  learning  regards  as 
wasting  time,  without  a  deliberate  putting 
into  the  background  of  what  people  call  the 
development  and  expansion  of  one's  own 
self.  '  I  want,'  young  teachers  write,  '  a 
larger  field  for  my  own  growth  and  my  own 
career.'  Yet  often,  as  Dr.  Holmes  would 
say,  in  the  place  they  already  occupy  they 
'  rattle  round  ' ;  they  fail  to  know  their  far- 
reaching  power  where  they  are  for  good  or 
for  evil,  and  to  know  that  out  of  the  very 
things  they  are  shirking  now  come  the 
growth  and  the  career.  ...  It  is  of  vital 
importance  what  sort  of  men  our  school- 
masters are." 


\ 


8        PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

If  a  teaclier  is  not  a  true  man  lie  has 
missed  his  profession.  There  may  be  an 
appearance  of  progress  under  a  man  who 
is  one  thing  in  the  class  and  another  thing 
in  his  own  life.  Grammars  may  be  com- 
mitted to  memory,  the  writers  of  the  world 
may  be  studied,  examinations  in  science 
may  be  passed,  but  the  boy  who  sits 
under  a  false  man  and  himself  grows  to  be 
a  true  man  does  so  through  his  native  force 
of  character  in  spite  of  his  teacher.  The 
majority  of  young  people  had  better  never 
be  in  any  class  than  in  one  under  a  false 
man  or  a  false  woman.  This  seems  so  clear 
as  to  be  self-evident,  yet  it  is  my  experi- 
ence that  nothing  is  so  easily  forgotten; 
we  all  run  so  quickly  to  cover  and  hide  our- 
selves behind  some  mask  of  fancied  power 
or  beauty.  And  the  young  trustful  child 
takes  it  all  for  granted;  he  is  so  easy  to 
dupe,  and  he,  in  turn,  learns  his  own  lesson 
in  deceit  without  being  aware  of  the  proc- 
ess or  the  result  till  it  is  too  late.  He 
finds  me  out  eventually,  but  he  is  gone,  and 
I  am  practising  my  fooleries  on  the  next 
lot.  If,  however,  I  should  carry  such  a 
personality  to  the  older  boys  or  men,  they 
would  make  me  over  into  a  decent  man  or 


THE  TEACHER  9 

turn  me  out.  By  the  very  young,  pictures 
are  easily  and  unconsciously  learned,  and, 
above  M  others,  the  picture  of  a  life.  The 
influence  of  the  elder  and  more  formed 
character  upon  the  younger  is  not  easily 
overestimated.  Children  may  be  bullied 
and  tricked  into  order  and  a  certain  kind 
of  attention;  they  will  admire  the  grand 
manner  and  obey  the  voice  and  gesture  of 
the  charlatan,  but  their  hearts  are  not  won ; 
and  worse  than  all  is  the  destructive  lesson 
in  the  shallowness  of  man.  It  surely  is 
better  that  a  man  should  never  have  been 
born  than  that  he  should  cause  one  of  these 
little  ones  to  lose  faith.  A  child  is  a  hero 
worshipper  before  he  is  a  critic,  and  often 
an  unconscious  mimic  of  what  he  may 
afterward  despise. 

x;  Truth  in  a  man  prompts  him  to  be 
humble-minded,  to  strive  to  see  himself  as 
others  see  him,  and  to  abandon  all  habits 
of  pretence.  The  humility  of  the  scholar  is 
not  at  once  appreciated  by  the  young ;  but, 
among  many  other  desirable  things  not 
natural  to  man,  this  stands  as  one  highly 
important  lesson  set  for  us  to  teach;  and 
there  is  only  one  way  to  teach  humility, 
and  that  is  to  he  humble-minded.    It  not 


10      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

only  helps  to  keep  a  man  from  makinr;  mis- 
takes himself  if  he  is  ready  to  acknowledge 
them,  but  it  is  often  encouraging  to  the 
child  to  find  that  in  his  teacher  he  has  a 
fellow  learner.  The  true  man  can  always 
afford  to  be  known;  and  he  is  a  gainer 
thereby  in  the  mutual  fellowship  that  is 
sure  to  grow  from  truth  and  humility. 

As  truth  begets  humility  so  also  does  it 
beget  purity.  A  true  heart  refuses  to 
cherish  what  would  be  shameful  in  act;  it 
becomes  a  jealous  guardian  of  thought  and 
motive.  These  remarks  are  of  the  nature 
of  platitudes,  yet  it  seems  to  me  that  the 
teacher  is  often  in  a  fair  way  to  forget  how 
insidious  are  many  things  innocent  in 
themselves,  if  they  convey  impure  sugges- 
tion. The  comparative  innocence  of  the 
child  or  youth  does  not  at  the  time  con- 
sciously note  the  more  subtle  phases  of  a 
man's  character,  but  none  the  less  the  pic- 
ture is  steadily  growing  in  clearness,  and, 
all  unnoted  by  man  or  boy,  turns  of  thought 
and  expression  are  doing  their  work  on 
what  may  be  called  the  subconscious  life  of 
the  younger,  to  bear  bitter  fruit  in  years 
to  come.  My  fellow  teachers,  have  you  not 
seen  it?     I  confess  that  at  times  I  am 


THE  TEACHER  11 

haunted  with  a  dread  of  what  I  all  uncon- 
sciously may  have  done  to  hasten  the  fall 
of  this  or  that  man  whom  I  once  knew  in- 
timately as  a  pure-minded,  open-hearted 
boy.  Eigid  self-examination  of  our  man- 
ners and  habits,  backed  by  regular  exercise 
and  the  companionship  of  noble  literature 
and  friends  of  one's  own  age,  seems  to  me 
indispensable  to  those  in  the  early  years  of 
our  profession. 

As  humility  and  purity  are  the  results  of 
the  application  of  truth  to  ourselves,  so 
justice  is  the  result  of  the  application  of 
truth  to  our  charges.  Is  it  not  remarkable 
how  truth,  or  rather,  the  constant  endeavor 
to  see  and  act  the  truth  in  all  things, 
broadens  the  intellect  and  heart,  so  that 
even  the  narrow  man  becomes  able  to  see 
his  boys  in  the  true  light  in  which  God  has 
made  them  and  brought  them  to  him  to  be 
taught  ?  And  the  woman  of  ready  sympathy 
and  quick  instinct,  if  she  is  a  searcher  after 
truth,  is  led  into  broader  fields  of  vision 
and  opportunity.  No  doubt  one  of  the  le- 
gitimate rewards  of  the  teacher  is  the  bond 
of  friendship  which  grows  between  himself 
and  the  few  of  his  pupils,  yet  it  must  never 
be  forgotten  that  a  child  is  a  child,  a  boy  is 


12      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

a  boy,  and  if  the  man's  craving  for  sym- 
pathy or  appreciation  leads  him  to  treat 
such  as  his  equal,  he  does  an  injustice  both 
to  himself  and  to  the  child,  and  the  sure 
consequence  is  disappointment.  Some  of 
these  children  are  far  above  us  in  every 
way.  I  sometimes  come  close  to  one  whom 
I  feel  it  a  privilege  to  have  known,  from 
whom  I  have  received  new  and  higher  con- 
ceptions of  duty  and  life;  yet  there  is 
always  the  immaturity  in  such  boys  whose 
very  beauty  is  spoiled  by  being  plastered, 
so  to  speak,  with  the  features  of  the  man. 
Moreover,  in  opening  one's  heart  even  to 
the  legitimate  intimacies  of  the  young, 
there  is  always  an  added  danger  of  injus- 
tice. Justice  is  very  hard  to  exercise,  if 
one  is  warm-hearted  and  sympathetic. 
While  sympathy  is  a  gift  absolutely  neces- 
sary to  the  successful  teacher,  justice  is 
more  important,  not  so  much  for  the  sake  of 
one's  own  power,  but  as  part  of  the  impres- 
sion of  truth  to  be  made  upon  the  child. 
And  over  and  above  the  personality  or 
power  of  the  teacher,  the  main  point  is 
simple:  namely,  what  is  due  to  each  one 
of  our  charges  whether  he  be  lovely  or 
unlovely.      The    thoughtlessness    of    the 


THE  TEACHER  13 

young,  their  expectation  of  everything 
being  done  for  them,  and  hence  their  disre- 
gard of  a  teacher's  rights,  form  no  excuse 
for  our  disregard  of  theirs.  With  bad  grace 
indeed  from  a  teacher  comes  a  plea  for  jus- 
tice to  himself  in  exculpation  of  some 
neglect ;  and  with  equally  bad  grace  does  he 
show  favor  to  those  who  show  favor  to  him. 
There  is  positively  no  excuse  for  discour- 
tesy to  any  child ;  on  the  contrary, 

"Maxima  debeturpuero  reverentia," 

is  a  motto  for  us  all.  No  matter  what  the 
offence  of  the  child,  for  us  is  the  counsel, 
''  Fathers,  provoke  not  your  children  to 
wrath."  Yet  the  kind  of  ''  offence  "  that 
falls  upon  the  child  from  a  too  rigid  ap- 
plication of  justice  has  nothing  in  com- 
mon with  the  *'  offence  "  offered  by  the 
man  who  is  not  true.  Though  the  first 
may  provoke  wrath  and  a  deal  of  unpleas- 
antness, and  the  second  pass  unnoticed  or 
followed  for  the  time,  in  after  years  the 
child  will  rise  up  and  call  the  first  man 
*'  blessed  "  and  the  second  "  cursed."  I 
well  remember  a  teacher  of  my  youth  who 
rarely  allowed  himself  to  show  any  sym- 


14      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

pathy.  The  consequence  was  a  dull,  spirit- 
less class,  with  many  failures  in  work.  The 
man's  sense  of  justice  was  so  exacting  as 
to  dominate  the  whole  atmosphere  of  the 
room.  After  listening  in  perfect  quiet  to  a 
translation,  while  making  small  dots  on  his 
marking  sheet,  he  would  say,  ' '  Norris,  you 
may  sit  down  now.  I  have  no  more  room 
to  register  your  mistakes."  Nevertheless, 
while  the  actual  work  of  the  Caesar  became 
irksome,  the  integrity  and  justice  of  the 
man  were  doing  a  higher  work.  Never 
could  some  of  us  forget  this  man;  the 
close  touch  with  such  a  character,  little 
appreciated  at  the  time,  has  grown  in 
my  memory  as  a  thing  to  be  cherished 
reverently. 

Next  to  truth  and  its  plainer  corollaries, 
follows  unselfishness.  To  give  truth  ample 
scope  in  any  case,  we  must  be  unselfish. 
The  true  man  comes  eventually  to  see  that 
truth  demands  self-surrender.  The  life  of 
the  great  scientist  and  seeker  after  truth, 
Huxley,  is  inspiring  and  instructive  in 
many  ways,  and  not  the  least  in  this,  that 
in  his  later  days  he  attained  to  a  wonderful 
humility  and  submission  which  were  prac- 
tically a  real  Christian  sacrifice. 


THE  TEACHER  15 

The  spirit  of  sacrifice  begets  such  a  habit 
of  self-forgetfulness  that  a  man  will  attain 
to  the  best  of  the  old  Stoic  pliilosophy;  he 
will  be  independent  of  outside  worry  or  in- 
side pain,  a  state  of  being  quite  necessary 
for  the  man  who  would  be  a  successful 
teacher,  and  yet  one  very  difficult  to  acquire 
except  through  the  spirit  of  sacrifice. 
Self-forgetfulness,  therefore,  we  may  call 
the  first  corollary  to  unselfishness.  This 
is  far  better  as  a  cure  for  the  ills  of 
the  teacher  than  the  fooleries  of  so- 
called  Christian  Science.  To  quote  again 
from  President  Hyde:  "  The  Christian 
Scientist  with  the  toothache  says  there  is 
no  matter  to  ache.  The  Stoic,  both  truer 
to  the  fact  and  braver  in  spirit,  says  there 
is  matter,  but  it  doesn't  matter  if  there  is. 
Stoicism  teaches  us  that  the  mental  states 
are  the  man ;  that  external  things  never,  in 
themselves,  constitute  a  mental  state;  that 
the  all-important  contribution  is  made  by 
the  mind  itself ;  that  this  contribution  from 
the  mind  is  what  gives  the  tone  and  de- 
termines the  worth  of  the  total  mental 
state,  and  that  this  contribution  is  ex- 
clusively our  own  affair  and  may  be 
brought  entirely  under  our  own  control." 


16      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

No  profession  probably  is  so  full  of  heart- 
burnings over  failures  of  self,  poverty  of 
means,  and  discouragements  in  children  and 
colleagues  as  our  own.  If  we  are  any  good, 
our  ideals  are  high,  and  consequently  disap- 
pointments almost  crushing.  Let  us  apply 
some  further  words  of  the  above  quoted 
writer  in  regard  to  Stoicism.  '  '■  There  is  a 
way  of  looking  at  our  poverty,  our  plain- 
ness of  feature,  our  lack  of  mental  bril- 
liance, our  unpopularity,  our  mistakes,  our 
physical  ailments,  that  will  make  us  modest, 
contented,  cheerful,  and  serene.  The  blun- 
ders we  make,  the  foolish  things  we  do,  the 
hasty  words  we  say,  though  they,  in  a  sense 
have  gone  out  from  us,  yet  once  committed 
in  the  external  world  they  should  be  left 
there ;  they  should  not  be  brought  back  into 
the  mind  to  be  brooded  over  and  become 
centres  of  depression  and  discourage- 
ment." Even  the  old  philosopher  realized 
that.  How  much  more  the  Christian  man, 
who  knows  that  his  God  has  taken  our  own 
weak  nature,  that  He  is  in  us  and  around 
us,  and  bids  us  cast  all  our  care  on  Him  I 
In  the  words  of  the  great  Apostle,  forget- 
ting those  things  that  are  behind  let  us 
press  on  to  the  mark  of  our  high  calling. 


THE  TEACHER  17 

Losing  oneself  in  the  high  calling  of  shap- 
ing children  to  the  image  in  which  they  are 
made,  is  a  guarantee  of  success  and  liappi-'^ 
ness.  The  man  that  cannot  lose  himself  is 
for  ever  doomed  to  the  woes  of  selfish- 
ness. 

Eules  for  teachers  or  children,  like  other 
formalities,  count  for  very  little,  and  in  the 
long  run  for  worse,  if  the  man  is  not  be- 
hind. But  if  there  is  the  character  worthy 
of  the  form,  there  cannot  be  too  much  stress 
laid  upon  the  latter.  The  outward  expres-  X 
sion  is  what  first  catches  the  attention,  and 
is  the  natural  medium  for  thoughts  high  or 
thoughts  low.  Let  us  remember  how  we 
ourselves  were  attracted  or  repelled  by  the 
face,  the  manner,  or  even  by  the  dress  of  a 
teacher.  How  minutely  did  we  observe 
every  detail  of  gesture  and  of  apparel,  the 
clean  hands  and  well-brushed  clothes  and 
polished  shoes!  There  is  no  place  in  this 
world,  I  believe,  where  the  manners  of  a 
gentleman  count  more  for  himself  and  for 
his  generation  than  they  do  in  the  class- 
room. The  well-modulated  voice,  the  clear 
and  distinct  articulation,  the  ready  smile 
indicative  of  humor  and  sjTnpathy  {not 
sarcasm) ;  in  fact,  all  the  arts  of  good 


18      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

breeding,  furthered  by  love,  are  not  too 
much  to  spend  in  order  to  win  the  heart 
and  open  the  mind  of  the  child.  So  often 
some  little  trick  of  voice  or  of  manner  or 
of  dress  is  the  undoing  of  the  teacher. 
I  remember  distinctly  my  own  aver- 
sion to  a  man,  which  aversion  arose  at  first 
solely  through  the  spots  and  dandruff  on 
his  coat. 

Different  peculiarities  annoy  different 
children.  The  unmanly  caress,  or  effem- 
inate speech,  as  well  as  the  harsh  and 
brutal,  is  likely  to  annul  the  effect  of  many 
fine  qualities. 

'*  Why  do  you  not  get"  on  with  Mr. 
A?  " 

("A"  was  a  painstaking,  refined,  and  un- 
selfish master.)  ''  He  is  too  affectionate," 
answered  a  boy  who,  in  every  respect,  was 
capable  of  appreciating  the  high  qualities 
of  his  teacher. 

And  then  again  one  wonders  at  the  ap- 
parent success  of  a  man  who  is  often  harsh 
and  brutal  in  voice  or  manner ;  and  a  young 
teacher  will  be  thus  tempted  to  assume  the 
hardness  which  he  does  not  feel.  Success 
of  this  sort  is  like  the  success  of  any  other 
tyrant  and  is  criminally  out  of  place  among 


THE  TEACHER  19 

teachers  of  cliildren,  Benson,  in  his 
''Upton  Letters,"  notes,  ''A  man  who  is  an 
egotist  nd  a  bully  finds  rich  pasturage 
among  boys  who  are  bound  to  listen  to  him 
and  over  whom  he  can  tyrannize."  This 
man;  say  I,  is  among  those  whose  necks 
should  be  hung  with  millstones.  In 
the  m'idst  of  some  tirade,  suddenly  one 
stops  and  imagines  himself  an  observer 
passing  the  door  of  his  own  classroom:  if 
he  be  a  true  man,  shame  overwhelms  him, 
and  this,  perhaps,  he  takes  no  great  pains 
to  conceal ;  perhaps,  confesses  at  once,  and 
afterwards,  in  the  stillness  of  his  own 
study,  wonders  what  his  pupils  think  of 
him.  Then  is  his  chance  to  step  up 
higher  on  another  stone  thrown  down 
from  that  great  wall  of  pride  that  would 
hem  in  and  darken  the  life  of  every 
man. 

If  we  could  see  ourselves  as  our  boys  see 
us,  and  if  we  did  but  realize  what  they  ex- 
pect of  us,  we  should  be  better  men  and 
better  teachers. 

Valuable  as  is  such  a  self-reflection  from 
our  pupils,  our  friends,  or  our  enemies, 
there  is,  however,  a  truer  gauge  as  well  as 
a  surer  source  of  strength: 


20      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

* '  Blessed  is  the  man  whose  strength  is  m  Thee ; 

In  whose  heart  are  Thy  ways. 
"Who  going  through  the  vale  of  misery 

Use  it  for  a  well : 
And  the  pools  are  filled  with  water, 

They  will  go  from  strength  to  strength 
And  unto  the  God  of  Gods  appeareth 

Every  one  of  them  in  Zion." 

Oh,  for  that  spirit  to-day  which  three 
hundred  years  ago  inspired  the  great  La 
Salle  and  filled  France  with  bands  of  men, 
devoted  heart  and  soul  to  teaching  the 
child !  No  hardship,  no  mental  or  spiritual 
discipline  was  too  much  for  these  men  that 
they  might  win  the  children  of  their  coun- 
try to  straight  thinking  and  living.  It 
is  interesting  to  note  that  La  Salle  was 
the  first  man  to  gather  children  and  teach 
them  in  classes,  and  he  was  the  first  to 
bring  men  together  into  brotherhoods  and 
community  of  life  for  the  sake  of  this 
kind  of  work.  Wliile  he  was  subject  to  the 
mistakes  of  the  Church  of  his  day,  he  kept 
himself  and  his  men  clean  from  intrigue, 
and  won  for  his  schools  the  lasting  love  of 
the  best  people  in  France.  The  tale  of  the 
devotion  and  phenomenal  success  of  ' '  The 


THE  TEACPIER  21 

Christian  Brothers  "  is  one  that  every 
teacher  would  be  the  better  for  reading. 
One  of  their  customs  shows  the  spirit  in 
which  they  approached  their  work.  After 
the  daily  morning  devotions  all  assembled 
in  their  common  room  and  confessed  one 
to  another  the  mistakes  and  failures  of  the 
preceding  day.  It  is  this  spirit  of  self-aa- 
cusation,  this  habit  of  tracing  failure  to 
oneself  rather  than  to  the  child,  that  not 
only  keeps  a  man  humble  in  his  own  life 
but  gives  him  real  power  over  the  life  of 
the  child. 

But  withal,  let  not  a  man  forget  that  he 
is  set  to  be  a  leader.  Children  are  merci- 
less in  their  demands,  and  as  soon  as  the 
teacher  abdicates  the  position  of  leader,  he 
is  not  only  teased  and  overburdened,  but, 
curiously  enough,  his  pupils  lose  their 
respect.  They  fear  and  perhaps  hate  the 
bully,  but  they  obey;  while  they  play  with 
a  better  man  who  does  not  assert  himself. 

True  leadership  can  come  only  to  the' 
strong,  attractive,  disciplined,  and  humble- 
minded  who  never  allow  their  pupils  to  lose 
sight  of  the  ideals  of  life.  The  leader  must 
go  before  in  all  things  that  make  a  man, 
not   only  in   striking  ]3oints   of  personal 


22      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

character  and  good  manners,  but  also  in 
habits  that  conduce  to  bodily  health  and 
good  temper  as  well  as  in  habits  of  study 
and  scholarship. 

Alas,  how  dependent  on  good  digestion 
and  good  red  blood  are  not  only  the  healthy 
flights  of  our  imagination  and  the  ex- 
pression of  high  thoughts  and  ideals,  but 
the  happy  conduct  of  the  simplest  routine ! 
The  nerves  of  teachers  must  be  steady; 
they  must  reflect  health  and  happiness  if 
they  are  to  lead  the  young.  President  Eliot 
has  said,  I  believe,  "  The  only  man  fit  for  a 
teacher  is  the  young  man  or  the  man  who 
never  grows  old."  For  the  comfort  of 
those  of  us  who  are  growing  old  in  our 
profession,  let  us  remember  Emerson's 
lines, 

**  Spring  still  makes  spring  in  the  mind 
When  sixty  years  are  told ; 
Love  makes  anew  the  throbbuig  heart 
And  we  are  never  old. ' ' 

And  the  sage  goes  on  to  say, ' '  Get  health. 
And  the  best  part  of  health  is  fine  disposi- 
tion. It  is  more  essential  than  talent,  even 
in  the  works  of  talent.    Nothing  will  supply 


THE  TEACHER  23 

the  want  of  sunshine  to  peaches,  and  to 
make  knowledge  vahiable,  you  must  have 
the  cheerfulness  of  wisdom." 

I  fear  that  we  shall  be  obliged  to  confess 
with  President  Hyde  that  Epicurus  must 
be  the  first  teacher  of  him  who  would  teach. 
He  says:  "A  teacher  who  works  at  such 
exhausting  and  narrowing  work  as  in- 
structing thirty  or  forty  restless  children, 
and  does  not  counteract  it  by  plenty  of  play, 
is  not  only  committing  slow  suicide,  but  he 
is  stunting  and  dwarfing  his  nature  so  that 
every  year  will  find  him  personally  less  fit 
to  teach  than  he  was  the  year  before.  .  .  . 
/  Play  and  people  to  play  with  are  as  neces- 
sary for  a  teacher  as  prayer  for  a  preacher, 
or  votes  for  a  politician,  a  piano  for  a  mu- 
sician, or  a  hammer  for  a  carpenter.  You 
simply  cannot  go  on  healthily,  happily, 
hopefully,  without  it.  .  .  .  In  short,  to 
quote  one  who  is  our  most  genial  apostle  of 
Epicureanism,  do  you  recognize  and  ar- 
range your  life  according  to  the  principle 
that 

*'  The  world  is  so  full  of  a  number  of  things, 
That  I'm  sure   we  should  all   be   happy   as 
kings!  '" 


24      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

Education  in  tliis  country  owes  a  great 
debt  to  President  Hyde  of  Bowdoin  Col- 
lege. His  manly  and  clear  insight  into  the 
needs  of  the  present  day  is  helping  men 
everywhere  and  especially  teachers  to  un- 
derstand the  ideals  and  details  of  the  pro- 
fession. 

In  line  with  his  remarks  on  this  subject 
let  us  add  our  experience  as  to  the  helpful- 
ness of  riding  a  hobby,  if  we  do  it  unosten- 
tatiously. Outside  intellectual  interests 
that  carry  us  away  even  into  the  clouds 
broaden  our  horizon,  and  bring  us  back  to 
our  classes  with  renewed  mental  brightness 
and  vigor.  When  the  mystic  descends  from 
his  beautiful  castle  in  the  air,  when  the 
philosopher  closes  his  book  or  blots  his 
page,  when  the  musician  "  hangs  up  the 
fiddle  and  the  bow,"  when  the  forester 
comes  out  of  the  woods  or  the  hunter  out  of 
the  swamps  and  briars,  one  and  all,  they 
come  from  a  new  point  of  view  after  un- 
conscious mental  growth,  and  each  bright- 
ens his  old  routine  with  new  lights. 

Let  a  man  be  not  only  well  prepared  in 
his  subject  far  in  advance  of  his  pupils,  but 
let  him  follow  his  own  sweet  pleasure  in  all 
that  goes  to  make  his  own  life  full  to  over- 


THE  TEACHER  25 

flowing.  Indeed,  no  culture  is  too  high,  no 
attainment  too  exalted  to  bring  into  the 
classroom  of  the  youngest  child.  We  can 
never  overestimate  the  silent  influence 
upon  the  boy  or  girl  of  all  that  the  teacher 
is  in  his  own  personality.  Therefore,  in 
this  exercise  of  our  right  and  duty  to  work 
and  to  play,  "the  problem  is,"  to  quote 
again  from  President  Hyde,  "one  of  pro- 
portion and  selection,  to  know  what  to 
slight  and  what  to  emphasize.  .  .  .  The 
teacher  should  have  a  pretty  clear  idea  of 
what  he  means  to  do  and  be.  That  which 
is  essential  to  this  main  end  should  be  ac- 
cepted at  all  costs;  that  which  hinders  it 
should  be  rejected  at  all  costs.  .  .  .  The 
teacher  should  learn  to  say,  'No!'  to  calls 
which  are  good  in  themselves,  but  are 
not  good  for  him."  Amateur  theatricals, 
church  fairs,  Sunday-school  work,  avoid; 
in  fact,  close  attention  to  anything  that  re- 
quires the  expenditure  of  the  same  nervous 
force  required  in  our  profession  is  to  be 
shunned. 

As  there  is  a  danger  in  the  wrong  selec- 
tion of  all  such  occupations  in  our  leisure, 
so  there  is  a  danger  of  want  of  proportion  in 
the  attention  which  we  give  to  the  different 


26      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

parts  of  our  work.  There  is  such  a  thing 
as  too  much  attention  being  paid  to  mark- 
ing and  to  accurate  ranking  by  those  whose 
business  it  is  to  teach  large  classes.  If 
anything  is  to  be  shirked,  shirk  the  least 
important  so  that  we  may  emphasize  the 
more  important.  "Do  the  thing  that 
counts.  Leave  things  that  do  not  count  un- 
done or  get  them  done  quickly.  Eemember 
that  physical  health,  mental  elasticity,  and 
freshness  and  vivacity  of  spirits  must  be 
maintained  at  all  costs  in  the  interests  of 
the  school  and  the  scholars  no  less  than  as 
a  matter  of  imperative  self-preservation.. 
The  wise  teacher  will  say  to  himself,  '  I 
must  know  the  lessons  I  teach;  I  must 
do  some  reading  outside;  I  must  take 
an  interest  in  my  individual  scholars;  I 
must  keep  myself  strong  and  happy  and 
well;  these  are  essential,  and  for  the  sake 
of  these  things  I  stand  ready  to  sacri- 
fice all  mere  red  tape;  I  stand  ready  to 
be  misunderstood  by  good  people  who 
Imow  nothing  of  the  strain  I  am  under;  I 
stand  ready  to  shirk  and  to  slight  minor 
matters  when  it  is  necessary  to  do  so  in 
order  to  do  the  main  things  well.'  The 
larger  a  man's  aims,  provided  he  is  able 


THE  TEACHER  27 

measurably  to  realize  them,  tlie  larger  his 
influence;  but  what  does  not  further  those 
aims  must  be  politely  ignored  so  far  as 
they  require  time  or  energy." 

The  child  is  the  teacher's  specialty  and 
constant  study;  not  simply  children,  and 
the  ways  of  teaching  and  disciplining,  but 
the  child,  each  and  every  individual  child 
committed  to  his  care.  The  curse  is  not 
upon  those  who  shall  offend  these  little 
ones  but  upon  '^whomsoever  shall  offend 
one  of  these  little  ones";  so  the  blessing, 
the  joy,  the  success  of  our  work  wait  upon 
him  who  will  ''receive  one  of  these  little 
ones."  He  knows  and  calls  each  by  name 
in  his  heart  as  well  as  with  his  lips.  If  one 
errs  the  ninety-nine  must  be  left  for  a  time, 
while  he  seeks  the  lost  through  all  the  pains 
and  dangers  to  his  own  pride  and  ease.  The 
only  measure  of  such  individual  care  is  the 
measure  of  his  own  powers.  The  true 
leader  goes  before,  and  he  holds  his  life 
in  his  hand  ready  to  give  with  no  reserve. 
This  is  the  supreme  gloiy  of  our  profes- 
sion. 

Writes  President  Hyde:  "Pour  your- 
selves unreservedly,  without  stint  or  meas- 
ure, into  the  lives  of  your  scholars.    See 


28      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

things  through  their  eyes ;  feel  keenly  their 
joys  and  griefs.  Be  sure  that  you  share  in 
sympathy  and  helpfulness  every  task  you 
lay  upon  them;  that  you  rejoice  in  every 
success  they  achieve,  and  that  you  are  even 
more  sorry  than  they  for  every  failure  they 
make.  Be  a  leader,  not  a  driver,  of  your 
flock  ;'^f or  to  lead  is  Christ-like,  to  drive  is 
unchristian.  The  difference,  you  see,  be- 
tween the  teacher  who  is  a  Christian  and 
the  one  who  is  not,  is  not  a  difference  of 
doctrine  or  ritual  or  verbal  profession.  It 
is  a  difference  in  the  tone,  temper,  and 
spirit  of  the  teacher's  attitude  toward  the 
scholars.  .  .  .  The  greatest  difference  be- 
tween teachers,  after  all,  is  that  in  this 
deepest  sense  some  teachers  are  Christians 
and  some  are  not.  The  teacher  who  is  not  a 
Christian  according  to  this  definition  will 
work  for  reputation  and  pay, — will  teach 
what  is  required  and  rule  the  school  by 
sheer  authority  and  force.  Between  teacher 
and  scholar  a  great  gulf  will  be  fixed;  the 
only  bridges  across  that  gulf  will  be  au- 
thority and  constraint  on  the  part  of  the 
teacher,  fear  and  self-interest  on  the  part 
of  the  pupils.  Such  a  teacher  will  set 
tasks  and  compel  the  scholars  to  do  them. 


i 


THE  TEACHER  29 

Here  sucli  a  teacher's  responsibility  will 
end. 

'*  Precisely  here,  where  the  unchristian 
teacher's  work  ends,  is  where  the  Christian 
teacher's  best  work  begins.  Instead  of  im- 
posing a  task  on  the  scholars,  the  Christian 
teacher  sets  before  scholars  and  teacher 
alike  a  task  which  they  together  must  do ; 
the  teacher  is  to  help  each  scholar  to  do  it 
and  each  scholar  is  to  help  the  teacher  to 
get  this  task  done.  It  is  a  common  work 
in  which  they  are  engaged.  If  they  suc- 
ceed it  is  a  common  satisfaction ;  if  anj^  in- 
dividual fails  it  is  a  common  sorrow.  The 
Christian  teacher  will  be  just  as  rigid  in  his 
requirements  as  the  unchristian  teacher, 
but  the  attitude  toward  the  doing  of  it  is 
entirely  different.  The  unchristian  teacher 
says  to  the  scholars, '  Go  and  do  that  work; 
I  shall  mark  you  and  punish  you,  if  you 
fail.'  The  Christian  teacher  says,  '  Come, 
let  us  do  this  work  together ;  I  am  ready  to 
help  you  in  every  way  I  can,  and  I  want 
each  of  you  to  help  me.'  " 

While  it  is  true,  as  we  have  reminded 
ourselves,  that  nothing  unworthy  will  do  to 
give  the  child,  that  no  sacrifice  is  too  great 
that  makes  the  man  or  the  woman  more 


30      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

effective,  so  it  is  equally  true  that,  no 
matter  how  great  the  gift  we  give,  we  shall 
find  it  again  in  our  work.  There  is  nothing 
that  comes  home  to  the  true  teacher  more 
clearly  as  the  years  go  on  than  this  fact, 
guaranteed  by  the  Great  Teacher,  namely, 
that  just  in  proportion  as  a  man  gives  his 
life  he  takes  it  again.  There  is  ever  a  new 
joy  as  this  or  that  difficult  child  turns  more 
and  more  to  the  light  that  you  are  trying  to 
hold,  and  begins  really  to  take  in  what  you 
are  trying  to  give.  And  is  it  not  true,  my 
fellow  teachers,  is  it  not  true  that,  in  spite 
of  a  full  share  of  disappointments  and  sor- 
rows, we  have  more  than  our  share  of  the 
love  of  our  fellows  1 

And  let  us  love  in  return;  for  he  that 
loves  much  will  not  only  sorrow  much  but 
rejoice  much.    This  is  life. 


n 

THE   CHILD 

WHAT  is  your  subject?  "  asked  a 
friend  of  a  teaclier  in  one  of 
our  large  schools.  "  Boys,"  was  the  quick 
reply.  "  I  mean,  what  is  your  branch?  " 
''  Boys!  boys!!  boys!!!  "  was  all  the  an- 
swer that  the  man  would  give. 

Every  true  teacher  must  feel  that  his 
'*  subject  "  is  always  tJie  child.  Mathe- 
matics, history,  the  clas&ics,  or,  whatever 
the  study  in  hand,  it  is  absolutely  sec- 
ondary to  the  child.  A  master  of  boys 
whose  success  as  a  teacher  and  leader  was 
a  by-word  in  his  generation,  was  frequently 
heard  to  say,  ''  Win  the  boy."  He  man- 
aged his  great  school  largely  through  his 
personal  influence  on  the  individual  mem- 
bers, both  men  and  boys;  public  welfare 
sometimes  seemed  to  suffer  and  even  jus- 
tice seemed  to  halt  in  the  plain  endeavor  to 
win  this  or  that  particular  boy  to  a  "  better 

31 


32      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

state  of  mind."  With  all  great  teachers 
the  same  point  is  invariably  emphasized  as 
first  and  last  and  all  the  time  the  underlying 
principle  of  their  work.  It  is  not  to  win 
the  child  to  oneself,  but  to  win  him  to  his 
own  ''  better  self."  The  winsomeness  of 
some  children  is  often  just  what  stands  in 
the  way  of  our  disinterested  efforts  for 
them  as  well  as  for  each  of  their  fellows, 
whereas  the  special  and  loving  attention 
bestowed  upon  the  commonplace  and  un- 
attractive, is  not  only  one's  duty  to  the 
individual,  but  it  is  a  source  of  power  for 
winning  all.  Nothing  so  impresses  chil- 
dren with  a  teacher's  competence  as  his 
patient  attention  and  success  with  the  slow 
and  diffident  child.  The  diffident  child? 
How  often  is  he  the  father  of  the  brilliant 
man!  That  which  marks  a  boy  as  out  of 
the  ordinary,  the  very  element  of  his  fu- 
ture greatness,  is  often  the  cause  of  his 
shyness  and  early  reticence.  Such  chil- 
dren are  generally  slow  to  develop:  they 
do  not  understand  themselves:  the  only 
thing  that  they  do  seem  to  see  plainly  is 
that  they  do  not  fit  their  surroundings. 
Men  and  women  long  in  our  profession 
have    noted    how    very    many    of    their 


THE  CHILD  33 

stupid  scholars  have  attained  to  solid 
success,  and  some  to  real  greatness.  These 
coins,  therefore,  are  worth  the  hunting,  for 
they  bear  the  ''  Image  of  the  King." 

Let  us  remark  just  here,  that  the  after 
success  of  this  kind  of  a  child  is  owing  not 
only  to  native  ability,  but  to  these  two 
facts:  first,  such  a  child,  always  taking  a 
low  place,  is  learning  the  inestimable 
lesson  of  humility;  and,  second,  such  a 
child  is  learning  to  overcome  difficulties,  to 
work  hard  and  patiently  in  a  way  denied  to 
the  quicker  and  earlier  mature.  And,  after 
all,  are  not  these  t"^o  chief  ends  of  edu- 
cation? The  power  to  work,  and  the  hu- 
mility that  fits  one  to  take  his  right  place 
in  the  brotherhood  of  man,  go  far  toward 
opening  to  a  man  the  treasures  of  the 
universe. 

Education,  as  we  all  know  and  generally 
forget,  is  not  so  much  the  putting  in  as  the 
leading  out:  the  leading  out  to  a  child's 
own  consciousness  all  that  is  best  in  him, 
and  so  exhibiting  the  possibilities  of  his 
mind  in  such  attractive  guise  as  to  arouse 
his  every  effort.  Before  good  work  must 
come  the  appetite,  and  before  the  appetite 
the  ideal.    The  ideal  is  given  shape,  and 


84      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

the  appetite  aroused  not  only  by  the  exhibi- 
tion of  what  the  world  holds  outside  the 
child,  but  also  by  showing  to  the  child  his 
own  connection  with  all  these  things  and 
his  possible  sovereignty  over  them.  To 
an  awakened  mind  or  body  every  labor 
has  its  charm.  Therefore,  these  three 
parts  of  education,  the  setting  forth  of  the 
ideal,  the  sharpening  of  the  appetite,  and 
the  drilling  in  the  habits  of  work,  though 
coming  in  the  order  named  and  having  at 
different  periods  in  the  child's  life  their 
relative  importance,  are  all  steps  to  the 
different  stages  in  the  same  ascent,  to  be 
repeated  again  and  again  before  each  new 
landing.  Early  childhood  is  preeminently 
the  time  for  inculcating  what  we  call  the 
idealistic  elements  of  life;  and,  while  this 
must  always  be  the  underlying  feature  of 
educating  children,  the  next  stage  in  the 
child  we  may  call  the  hungry  stage,  which 
is  to  be  duly  used  to  lay  in  stores  of  beau- 
tiful and  necessary  forms,  and  to  incul- 
cate habits  of  application  and  hard  work. 
Here  we  may  venture  a  general  definition 
of  education  as  "■  the  process  of  proving 
to  the  child  that  work  and  not  idleness  is 
the  normal  state  of  happiness."    We  shall 


THE  CHILD  35 

induce  him  to  try,  and  so  to  prove  to  him- 
self that  work  begets  appetite  for  more 
work. 

On  these  considerations,  then,  dejjends 
the  attitude  with  which  the  teacher  ap- 
proaches the  child,  and,  therefore,  the  gen- 
eral character  of  the  teacher's  methods  in 
training  and  discipline. 

Is  it  to  put  in  something  that  is  not 
there,  or  to  bring  out  something  that  is 
there?  Is  it  to  present  a  subject  or  a  les- 
son as  something  foreign  to  the  child's  ex- 
perience to  be  driven  in,  or  is  it  to  lead  the 
child  from  its  own  conscious  experience 
step  by  step  to  heights  of  imagination  and 
practice  before  unknown?  In  discipline,  is 
it  to  force  the  will  to  make  a  show  of 
obedience,  or  is  it  to  bring  the  child,  even 
by  severe  punishment,  if  needs  be,  to  his 
own  better  self? 

What  more  precise  or  more  comprehen- 
sive expression  may  we  use  for  the  child 
in  this  view  than  the  old  familiar  phrase, 
^ '  the  child  of  God  ' '  I  When  applied  gen- 
erally, we  mean  by  this,  that  the  child  is 
made  in  the  image  of  perfection.  We  may 
say  what  we  please  about  "  The  Fall  "  or 
man's  natural  degeneracy,  yet  it  is  the  uni- 


86      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

versal  testimony  of  those  who  look  for  it 
that  in  every  normal  child  there  is  that 
Image,  and  a  more  or  less  ready  response 
to  its  appeal.  The  chink  to  this  inner 
divinity  is  sometimes  very  narrow,  and  the 
frightened  little  soul  would  feign  hide.  It 
is  this  conscious  possibility,  however,  in 
the  child  that  the  true  teacher  sets  himself 
to  strengthen,  and  to  which  in  some  form 
or  other  he  invariably  appeals.  We  have 
all  noted  how  a  mother's  faith  in  a  boy 
gives  her  a  hold  that  the  father,  as  a  rule, 
fails  to  acquire.  And  it  is  this  very  same 
kind  of  faith  in  and  insight  into  a  child's 
possibilities  that  gives  a  teacher  the  en- 
trance to  the  heart.  We  all  remember,  in 
our  childhood,  those  who  believed  in  us: 
a  teacher  here  or  there,  one  trained  and  ele- 
vated by  a  life  of  devotion,  a  friend,  or  per- 
haps a  servant  in  the  house.  Whoever  it 
was,  their  belief  in  us  **  led  out  "  the  best 
of  our  hidden  store,  and  went  a  long  way 
toward  our  "  education."  When  we  have 
said  this  we  have  said  what  comprises 
everything  in  the  treatment  of  the  child. 
Given  the  devotion  on  the  part  of  the 
teacher  and  this  idea  of  the  child,  then  the 
different  characters  to  be  dealt  with  will 


THE  CHILD  37 

suggest  the  different  methods  to  be  used. 
Older  teachers  know  only  too  well  the  ab- 
solute failure  that  waits  upon  the  ma- 
chinery of  education  uninspired  by  the 
personal  touch ;  as  we  also  know  the  failure 
of  trying  to  make  one  kind  of  a  child  out 
of  another  kind.  The  docile  teachable 
youngster  who  easily  takes  one's  point  of 
view  spoils  us  for  the  more  obstinate  or 
lazy;  and  then  there  comes  the  temptation 
of  putting  the  screws  of  one's  own  making 
ui3on  the  wrongheadedness  of  the  one  or 
upon  the  flabby  inertia  of  the  other :  there 
is  pinching  and  squeezing,  but  not  much 
moulding.  It  is  also  easy  to  forget  that, 
as  a  rule,  the  more  indeiDcndent  mind,  the 
one  harder  to  teach,  is  of  the  higher  or 
creative  class.  It  will  be  interesting  later 
on  to  study  the  methods  by  which  one  may 
arouse  this  kind  of  a  child  to  do  his  best. 
The  danger  is  that  we  make  it  stupid  by 
our  own  stupid  driving.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  quick  response  and  rapid  ad- 
vance of  the  first  is  often  but  catching 
the  mere  straws  of  education,  and  when 
bereft  of  the  stimulus  of  the  teacher  and 
of  school  honors, — quick  returns  for  small 
successes, — fails  miserably ;  it  has  not  been 


»/ii<MiiL  5Li^yyL, 


38      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

taught  to  "  lead  out  "  and  marshal  its 
own  resources,  but,  on  the  contrary,  has 
formed  the  habit  of  looking  for  friendly 
allies.  While  the  one  is  growing  into  the 
habit  of  the  slave,  the  other  is  growing  into 
the  habit  of  the  nursling;  both  are  losing 
in  manliness  and  initiative  force. 

The  driver  and  the  nurse  are  equally  out 
of  place  in  the  school.  When  one  sees  the 
failures  of  some  men  who  stood  high  at 
school,  he  is  reminded  of  the  old  slave  who 
came  to  his  much-loved  master  after  the 
war  to  beg  him  to  make  him  work  his  own 
garden  patch  as  he  did  "  'f  o '  de  wah. ' '  On 
the  next  plantation,  they  robbed  the  slave- 
driver  whom  they  did  not  love. 

What  President  Hyde  says  of  the  college 
boy  is,  to  a  degree,  true  of  the  child :  ' '  No 
man  can  grow  in  character  unless  he  is 
oing  freely  and  gladly  something  which 
he  likes  to  do — something  into  which  he 
can  put  the  whole  energy  of  his  will,  the 
whole  enthusiasm  of  his  heart.  .  .  .  We 
can  never  make  men  out  of  the  boys  who 
come  to  us,  unless  in  some  form  or  other 
we  give  them  a  career  in  which  to  work  out 
freely  what  is  in  them.  Wherever  pre- 
scription  and   paternalism   undertake    to 


THE  CHILD  39« 

domineer  the  life  of  the  student,  there  we 
are  sure  to  find  either  lawlessness,  re- 
bellion, and  all  manner  of  boisterous  mis- 
chief, or  else  the  product  of  such  an  insti- 
tution will  be  a  lot  of  good-for-nothing, 
effeminate  namby-pamby  weaklings." 

As  a  man  proceeds  in  the  work  of  edu- 
cation, he  has  less  and  less  confidence  in 
the  line  between  ^'  clever  "  and  "  dull  " 
children.  An  old  teacher  was  wont  to  say 
that,  in  his  opinion,  there  is  very  little 
difference  in  actual  ability  to  learn;  that 
the  difference  lies  mostly  in  the  desire  and 
the  will.  But  here  there  is  a  wide  differ- 
ence, and  it  is  our  task  to  arouse  and  direct 
the  desire,  while  we  strengthen  and  steady 
the  will.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  the 
' '  average  child  ' ' :  each  one  claims  our  spe- 
cial attention  for  its  own  individual  wants. 
The  "  ninety  and  nine  "  will  not  stray 
while  we  seek  the  one  lagging  or  lost.  Yet 
we  note  that  the  Master  left  them  that  He 
might  make  the  flock  whole  once  more, — 
''  that  they  all  may  be  one."  Therefore, 
there  is  no  such  thing  either  as  the  ''  ex- 
ceptional child, ' '  in  the  sense  that  he  can  be 
saved  alone,  that  his  "  leading  "  is  to  end 
anywhere  but  as  one  of  the  great  family  of 


40      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATIOxN 

men.  This  idea  should  permeate  the  whole 
process  of  education.  The  earlier  a  child 
learns  that  he  is  but  one  of  a  great  com- 
pany, that  he  is  not  an  exception,  but  a  rule, 
the  better  for  him.  The  earlier  a  boy 
learns  to  take  his  bitters  and  his  sweets 
with  his  fellows,  the  better  and  happier  for 
him.  Children  are  naturally  gregarious ;  it 
is  the  state  in  which  we  all  find  our  great- 
est happiness,  and  the  child  from  the  start 
should  be  trained  to  take  his  place.  This 
natural  joy  of  companionship  is  one  of  a 
teacher's  best  means  to  arouse  the  desire 
and  steady  the  will.  How  often  we  have 
seen  the  stupid  listless  boy  "  wake  up  " 
when  thrown  with  others!  It  is  not  only 
the  competition,  it  is  the  play  of  number- 
less and  unnamed  characteristics  aroused 
by  the  mere  companionship.  We  have 
here,  then,  both  an  end  and  a  means  of 
education. 

To  press  this  point  still  farther,  not  only 
is  the  child  to  be  educated  in  that  balance 
of  mental  attainments  which  go  to  make 
the  boy  an  educated  man,  able  to  hold  his 
own  in  the  world,  and  the  girl  an  educated 
woman,  able  to  hold  her  own  in  the  world, 
but  the  particular  ability  of  each  is  to  be 


THE  CHILD  41 

discovered  and  so  guided  as  to  enable  each 
to  fit  best  in  that  i)lace  in  the  family  of 
mankind  to  which  he  may  be  called.  A 
careful  judgment,  therefore,  in  regard  to 
the  material  before  one  is  a  grave  responsi- 
bility for  the  teacher.  A  skilled  workman 
must  be  a  good  judge  of  material.  Minds 
must  be  studied  and  known  if  minds  are 
to  be  trained.  The  blind  cannot  be  taught 
to  draw,  nor  the  dumb  to  sing.  The  ques- 
tion is  first,  what  this  mind  is,  not  what  it 
ought  to  be;  the  actual  material  that  gen- 
erations of  neglect,  or  idleness,  or  wrong 
methods  or  dull  homes,  or  money-loving 
cities,  or  any  other  form  of  stunted  life 
may  send  forth;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
actual  material  that  generations  of  refine- 
ment and  intellectual  effort  have  produced 
in  the  child  before  you.  In  any  and  in 
every  case,  the  child  must  be  studied  and 
its  best  side  reached.  Broadly  speaking, 
the  elective  system  cannot  be  too  soon  or 
too  wisely  begun.  While  we  are  constrain- 
ing the  child  to  the  exertion  of  what  seem 
to  be  its  weaker  faculties,  leading  it  with 
all  the  power  we  may  to  a  habit  of  over- 
coming difficulties,  the  special  gift,  if  there 
be  one,  must  never  be  lost.     Everything 


42      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

will  be  better  done  if  opportunity  is  wisely 
given  for  even  the  baby  to  choose  what  she 
likes  best.  The  instinct  to  be  alone  with 
nature  or  with  books  or  with  the  one 
friend,  is  to  be  recognized  and  turned  to 
the  best  advantage.  The  power  to  be  a 
great  leader  often  develops  from  these 
very  habits  of  close  and  quiet  conununing. 
Modern  methods  of  education  are  in  dan- 
ger at  some  points  of  denying  this  chance 
to  the  child,  while  at  others  there  is  a  fool- 
ish latitude.  Some  of  us  have  seen  the 
listless  schoolboy,  the  *'  butt  "  of  his  class, 
rouse  up  all  his  faculties  when  he  has  dis- 
covered something  which  he  can  do  well. 
The  cariDcnter's  bench,  more  than  once, 
has  helped  to  open  the  mind  to  the  contem- 
plation of  the  highest  themes.  One  little 
eminence  attained  gives  a  new  view  and 
opens  new  possibilities.  Happiness  floods 
the  heart,  and  the  heavy  mind  becomes,  in 
a  sense,  a  new  creature ;  all  work  becomes 
easier  and  is  better  done,  because  one  thing 
is  well  done.  It  is  the  well-rounded  spe- 
cialist who  has  learned  to  work  even  under 
difficulties  that  makes  the  happiest  as  well 
as  the  most  useful  citizen.  "  Jack  of  all 
trades  "  becomes  "  master  of  none,"  and 


THE  CHILD  43 

this  *'  master  of  none  "  never  knows  the 
joy  of  doing  a  thing  really  well,  as  he 
never  knows  the  full  joy  of  that  sweet 
interdependence  between  those  who  give 
and  those  who  receive.  He  tries  to  be  all- 
sufficient  in  himself.  But  ''  to  give  and  to 
take  '' — this  is  breath,. the  breath  in  and  the 
breath  out — this  is  life  as  well  as  education. 

In  a  large  degree  this  is  the  life  and  the 
reward  of  the  true  teacher,  for  he  gets  as 
much  as  he  gives.  Year  after  year,  day 
after  day,  as  a  man  goes  to  his  class  in  the 
same  old  room  to  give  and  to  hear  the 
same  old  lessons,  not  only  are  the  faces 
ever  new,  but  for  him  there  is  an  ever- 
growing faith  in  the  hidden  treasures  of 
the  child.  Every  day  there  is  the  old 
enemy  in  much  the  same  guise,  but  every 
day  we  are  learning  his  tricks  and  new 
methods  of  attack,  and  every  day  we  find  a 
new  treasure  in  a  fresh  breath  of  truth  and 
purity  from  the  child.  We  are  the  first 
recipients  of  what  we  ''  lead  out  "  from 
this  inexhaustible  child. 

Such,  then,  is  the  child,  and  such  is  his 
destiny.  He  is  noiv  the  "  Child  of  God,'* 
fresh  from  the  hands  of  his  Creator,  with 
all  the  possibilities  of  happiness  and  use- 


44      PERSONALITY.  IN  EDUCATION 


1 


fulness;  and  the  fulfilment  of  his  destiny 
is  largely  in  our  hands. 

All  our  methods,  therefore,  should  tend 
to  bring  home  to  the  child  the  truth  of  his  J 
inheritance,  and  so  to  fit  him  not  only  for 
his  own  battle  against  "  the  world,  the 
flesh,  and  the  devil,"  but  for  his  fight  in  the 
ranks  for  the  spread  of  that  Kingdom  of 
Love  which  is  to  bring  deliverance  to  the 
oppressed  and  freedom  to  those  that  are 
bound. 


in 

THE  NUKSERY 

IF  it  comes  to  a  choice  of  ''  bringing 
up  "  the  child  according  to  some  pre- 
conceived notion  or  of  "  letting  him  grow 
up,"  by  all  means  choose  the  latter.  If 
I  were  a  child  endowed  with  the  light  of 
my  present  experience,  I  should  say  with 
David,  '^  Let  us  fall  now  into  the  hand  of 
the  Lord;  for  His  mercies  are  great:  and 
let  me  not  fall  into  the  hand  of  man."  It 
is  evident,  however,  that  more  children  are 
spoiled  by  neglect  than  by  over  care.  Our 
object  is,  therefore,  to  indicate  the  lines  on 
which  the  early  years  should  be  trained  in 
order  best  to  prepare  the  child  for  going 
away  to  school.  Wise  training  rather 
than  much  training,  wisdom  rather  than 
zeal,  is  our  watchword  in  all  this  nurturing 
of  the  springs  of  life.  The  problem  is  al- 
ways the  same,  though,  if  anything,  more 

45 


46      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

important  in  tlie  nursery  than  in  the 
school;  and  the  problem  is,  "  to  bring  out 
all  that  is  best  in  the  child  to  all  good 
uses."  It  is  not,  therefore,  to  "  bring 
up  "  the  little  one  to  something  great,  but 
to  ^'  bring  out  "  the  inborn  image  of  per- 
fection by  a  wise  nurture  of  growth. 

This  nurture  cannot  be  started  too  soon. 
When  one  attempts  to  trace  to  its  source 
some  habit  for  good  or  evil,  he  generally 
becomes  lost  in  the  earliest  reaches  of  his 
memory.  Our  Roman  brother  says, ' '  Give 
me  the  child  till  he  is  twelve  and  he  is 
mine  always." 

Discipline  meets  us  on  the  very  thresh- 
old; as  to  this,  let  us  remember  that  the 
exalting  of  good  is  better  than  the  blaming 
of  bad.  Scolding  and  punishment  can 
never  take  the  place  of  happy  surroundings 
and  uplifting  example.  However,  a  child 
must  be  led  to  strict  obedience  even  at  the 
cost  of  painful  punishment.  A  light  switch 
quickly  and  lovingly  and  effectively  ad- 
ministered saves  much  unhappiness.  Dif- 
ferent methods  of  bringing  about  this 
obedience  in  children  will  apply  to  differ- 
ent children,  but  for  all,  the  personality  of 
the  father,  mother,  or  nurse  is  the  one  thing 


THE  NURSERY  47 

needful ;  such  a  personality  as  never  leaves 
a  sting,  but  brings  home  and  finishes  every 
punishment  with  words  and  deeds  of  love. 
Discipline  may  have  but  one  object,  and 
that  is  to  raise  the  divine  in  the  child,  and 
not  the  devil.  Deceit  and  lying  are  the 
Devil's  clothes  for  the  little  one,  and  some 
children  they  fit  so  naturally  as  to  demand 
great  patience  and  wisdom  in  substituting 
the  garment  of  truth. 

If  there  is  a  necessity  for  the  teacher  to 
be  truthful,  pure,  and  unselfish,  there  is 
greater  necessity  for  the  nurse,  be  she 
mother  or  servant.  There  is  not  only  the 
direct  influence  through  discipline  and  ex- 
ample, but  there  is  that  mysterious  spirit- 
ual influence  that  the  elder  has  over  the 
younger  and  unformed  character.  The 
child  catches  not  only  manners  and  ways, 
but  traits  of  character,  so  that  the  ex- 
pression of  its  face  will  often  grow  very 
like  to  that  of  a  nurse. 

Next  to  the  personality  of  the  nurse  we 
shall  have  a  care  to  all  that  the  little  one 
sees  and  hears.  Pleasant  faces,  attractive 
pictures,  etc.,  are,  however,  more  common 
than  wise  words.  "  Little  pitchers  have 
long  ears,"  and  many  a  child  has  learned 


48      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

in  the  nursery  the  habit  of  unkind  criticism 
and  gossip  which  he  carries  with  him 
through  life.  Just  here  we  touch  what 
seems  the  first  principle  in  the  education 
of  children  and  all  young  people,  the  prin- 
ciple of  faith. 

Now  faith,  as  a  principle  of  life,  to  state 
it  very  simply,  is  the  habit  of  mind  which 
first  believes  and  then  tests  the  belief  in 
practice;  the  habit  of  mind  which,  drilled 
in  grammar  (so  to  speak),  through  good 
example,  grasps  intuitively  the  best  of 
man's  experience  for  its  own  use.  Original 
investigation  and  initiative  are  the  surer 
for  practical  result  with  faith  as  a  basis 
for  individual  experience.  Many  men,  emi- 
nent scholars,  lecturers,  and  preachers  of 
great  power,  have  failed  with  children  for 
lack  of  that  definiteness  which  not  only 
carries  conviction  to  the  mind  of  the  child, 
but  calls  out  faith. 

It  was  a  wise  man  as  well  as  a  poet  who 
sang: 

**  Blessed  is  the  man  .  .  .  that  sitteth  not  in 

the  seat  of  the  scornful. 
But  his  delight  is  in  the  law  of  the  Lord ; 
And  in  His  law  doth  he  meditate   (exercise 

himself)  day  and  night. 


THE  NURSERY  49 

*'  And  he  shall  be  like  a  tree  planted  by  the  riv- 
ers of  water  that  bringeth  forth  his  fruit  in 
due  season; 
His  leaf  also  shall  not  wither ;  and  whatsoever 
he  doeth  shall  prosper. ' ' 

Moreover,  the  supposition  on  which  we 
began  and  continue  these  reflections  is  that 
those  who  teach  in  the  nursery  or  in  school 
should  first  have  faith  themselves  in  the 
child;  and,  second,  by  their  own  truth  and 
sincerity  teach  the  child  in  turn  to  have 
faith  in  them.  They  are  to  believe  that 
the  best  is  somewhere  hidden  away  in  the 
heart  of  every  child,  and  then  to  work  out 
this  belief  in  every  act  of  discipline  or  en- 
couragement in  such  a  way  as  to  win  the 
trust  and  confidence  of  the  child  to  them- 
selves and  to  the  laiv  that  they  teach.  Faith 
in  a  teacher  and  in  the  law  which  he 
teaches  will  lay  in  the  young  a  foundation 
on  which  to  build  the  finest  structure  of  ex- 
perience, whether  in  science  or  practice. 

Faith?  We  have  sometimes  been  so 
frightened  at  the  grotesque  forms  taught 
in  the  name  of  faith  for  the  purpose  of  sat- 
isfying human  greed  for  power  that  we 
have  fled  to  the  opposite  extreme  only  to 
find  that  the  truest  agnostic,  in  his  search 


50      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

for  truth,  arrives  at  tlie  point  where  every 
child  should  start :  "  I  know  little  or  noth- 
ing; every  step  forward  in  knowledge  but 
broadens  my  view  of  those  facts  which  I 
must  believe  in  order  to  live."  When  we 
speak  of  faith,  therefore,  we  mean,  in  this 
connection  a  habit  of  mind ;  and  something 
even  more  than  this,  even  that  idea  of  faith 
which  we  gather  from  St.  Paul's  frequent 
use,  a  ''  soul-attitude  "  which  involves  the 
whole  person,  and  directs  the  whole  intel- 
lectual growth.  Nothing  could  be  more 
unwise  than  to  allow  such  a  faith  to  be 
bound  within  the  limits  of  word  formulas, 
call  them  what  you  please.  Equally  un- 
wise is  the  teacher  to  forego  the  use  of 
such  formula  in  teaching  this  element  of 
trust  or  faith,  not  only  as  a  starting-point 
for  the  child,  but  in  directing  the  intellect 
to  the  most  practical  method  for  arriving 
at  results  for  itself.  A  creed  is  not  a  wall, 
but  a  path  leading  out  into  limitless  ad- 
venture. No  one  has  improved  on  the  plan 
of  the  great  apostle  Paul,*  "  For  I  deliv- 
ered unto  you  first  of  all  that  which  also 
I  received."  Then  after  a  clear  statement 
of  what  he  had  received  comes  the  equally 
clear  statement  of  his  own  experience,  and 

*  1  Cor.  XV. 


THE  NURSERY  51 

then  the  appeal  to  the  experience  of  his 
>\  pupils, ' '  If  Christ  be  not  raised,  your  faith 
is  vain;  ye  are  yet  in  your  sins  ";  three 
equally  important  witnesses,  with  which  to 
confront  every  child,  in  their  proper  order ; 
the  witness  of  the  fathers,  as  coming  with 
the  authority  and  weight  of  one  who  has 
made  it  his  own,  and  so  applied  it  as  to 
stimulate  experience  to  be  its  own  witness. 
Indeed,  this  is  the  method  of  the  Master 
Himself  all  through  His  teaching;  the 
"  witness  of  John,"  the  "  witness  "  of  His 
own  works,  and  the  "  witness  "  of  the 
hearts  of  His  hearers,  or,  as  it  is 
summed  up  in  another  place  (S.  John  iii: 
32)  by  the  Forerunner  himself,  ''  What 
he  hath  seen  and  heard,  that  he  testifieth," 
and  ' '  He  that  receiveth  his  testimony  hath 
set  to  his  seal  that  God  is  true." 

Faith,  therefore,  may  be  called  both  the 
method  and  the  chief  object  to  be  attained 
in  teaching  the  child.  As  one  would  sup- 
pose, it  is  the  nature  of  the  child  to  trust 
and  to  take  things  on  trust ;  and,  while  we 
make  use  of  this  faculty,  it  is  all-important 
to  lead  it  out,  or  educate  it,  on  sane  and 
natural  lines.  The  elder  cannot  be  too 
careful  in  fulfilling  every  promise  and  in 


52      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

refraining  from  all  threats ;  cannot  be  too 
careful  in  setting  an  example  of  trust  and 
faith  in  their  fellows ;  cannot  be  too  careful 
in  avoiding  all  pretence,  and  effort  to  fool 
the  child.  The  religious  elements  of  edu- 
cation do  not  enter  distinctively  into  the 
scope  of  this  paper,  but  let  us  note  here 
that  so-called  religious  faith  cannot  be 
taught  except  through  faith  in  man ; ' '  first 
that  which  is  natural,  then  that  which  is 
spiritual."  The  child  drinks  in  its  faith  in 
God  through  mother  and  nurse.  Indeed, 
faith  in  God  and  faith  in  man  and  (may  we 
not  say?)  in  nature  are  one.  Long  expe- 
rience in  the  country  districts  of  New  Eng- 
land has  burned  into  my  mind  some  dread- 
ful pictures  of  faithlessness.  I  doubt  if 
darkest  Africa  can  match  instances  of  the 
devilish  natures  nurtured  in  some  of  our 
New  England  homes  where  ' '  experience  ' ' 
rather  than  ' '  faith  ' '  has  been  for  genera- 
tions the  religious  watchword.  Deserted 
farms  and  childless  homes  bear  witness  to 
the  failure  of  the  stream  of  life.  No  trust 
in  God  or  man,  no  trust  in  nature  except 
what  a  man  may  win  by  his  own  meagre 
efforts,  has  produced  a  condition  of  society 
and  a  type  of  individual  truly  appalling. 


THE  NURSERY  53 

Shut  within  itself  the  heart  of  man,  nat- 
urally trustful  and  teachable,  has  become 
so  small  and  hard  as  to  seem  almost  inhu- 
man. Self-will  has  become  its  God,  and 
selfishness  its  rule  of  life,  even  where  some 
of  the  old  formulas  of  faith  have  a  nominal 
dominion.  The  very  soil  is  hungry  for  the 
seeds  of  faith.  The  Irish  and  the  French- 
Canadian,  trained  on  different  lines,  come 
into  the  waste  places,  and  the  old  house  is 
full  of  children,  and  the  old  barn  full  of 
plenty.  Every  quackery  has  also  found  in 
this  country  a  ready  soil ;  so  barren  is  the 
heart  that  the  man  whose  faith  is  roused 
by  a  bread  pill  or  a  Mother  Eddy  goes  out 
to  a  newer  and  happier  life.  Works  with- 
out faith  are  veritable  grave-clothes;  this, 
too,  in  the  land  whose  watchword  once  was 
"  justification  by  faith."  Do  let  us  read 
the  signs  of  the  times,  that  our  children 
may  have  life  in  abundance. 

Faith  being,  therefore,  the  main  proposi- 
tion for  the  nursery,  Responsibility  is  the 
first  corollary.  The  child  who  is  brought 
up  to  believe  that  he  is  a  child  of  God 
made  for  some  fine  purpose  and  one  of  a 
great  family,  naturally  breathes  the  spirit 
of  responsibility.     Regularity  in   all   the 


64      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

small  duties  of  the  home  is  essential,  as  well 
as  order  and  obedience.  There  is  but  one 
commandment  that  has  a  promise  all  its 
own :  namely,  * '  Honor  thy  father  and  thy 
mother."  Obedience  as  a  principle  and 
habit  of  life  is  rarely  learned  except  in  the 
nursery  or  in  the  hard  life  of  the  barracks. 
Experience  soon  teaches  that  submission  is 
expedient,  but  expediency  is  a  weak  mas- 
ter. It  is  the  unswerving  and  loyal  sub- 
mission of  the  well-trained  child  that 
brings  success  to  the  man,  the  life  ' '  long  '  ^ 
in  usefulness  and  happiness  if  not  in  years. 
Responsibility,  however,  has  its  back- 
ground: namely,  the  free  and  happy 
growth  of  the  child's  own  tastes  and  pow- 
ers. A  wise  freedom  to  choose  his  own  way 
is  absolutely  essential,  as  well  as  the  chance 
to  bear  the  results  of  his  own  mistakes.  As 
soon  as  possible  the  child  should  be  held 
responsible  for  the  care  of  his  own  posses- 
sions— his  room,  pets,  books,  or  toys.  As 
a  child  grows  older,  every  added  privilege 
should  carry  with  it  an  added  duty.  Great, 
strong  men  who  have  fought  and  won  their 
battle  in  life  bring  their  boys  from  the  nur- 
sery to  the  school  with  the  remark,  ''  I 
have  had  to  work  for  everything  from  my 


THE  NURSERY  55 

boyhood,  and  T  want  my  boy  to  have  wliat- 
evcr  he  wishes."  We  look  at  the  boy  and 
we  see  the  stamp  of  helplessness,  and  our 
hearts  sink.  If  we  were  wise,  we  would 
answer,  ''  Then,  sir,  please  take  him  home 
again;  you  would  deprive  your  boy  of  the 
very  thing  that  made  you  a  man." 

The  child  in  the  nursery  knows  not  what 
the  word  "  responsibility  "  means,  but  it  is 
remarkable  how  soon  the  sense  of  it  grows 
under  the  proper  influence.  Indeed,  the 
older  one  takes  so  naturally  to  a  share  in 
the  care  of  the  younger,  and  in  the  othei* 
burdens  of  the  nursery,  that  with  some 
there  is  a  danger  of  blighting  their  free 
and  light-hearted  joys.  There  are  two 
sides  to  the  answer  of  the  question,  ' '  Dost 
thou  not  think  that  thou  art  bound  to  be- 
lieve and  to  do  as  your  sponsors  promised 
for  you?  " — the  "  yes,  verily  "  and  the  "  I 
heartily  thank  ' ' :  there  must  be  the  yoke, 
but  it  must  be  easy  and  light;  there  must 
be  joy  in  the  nursery. 

The  imagination  furnishes  a  large  part 
of  the  material  for  the  life  of  a  happy 
nursery,  and  it  should  have  free  play.  In 
that  wonderful  fairyland  in  which  most  of 
us  have  lived,  the  hours  are  not  only  happy, 


56      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

but  they  are  fraught  with  deep  truths  of 
life.  Never  mind  the  borderland  between 
truth  and  fancy ;  that  is  * '  a  secret ' '  of  the 
little  one  and  will  clear  itself  without  the 
aid  of  the  "  grown  up,"  if  we  are  just 
to  ourselves.  Dwarf  the  imagination  and 
you  impair  the  power  of  vision,  and 
weaken  the  grasp  of  faith ;  in  other  words, 
you  dwarf  the  whole  realm  of  the  intellect 
and  heart.  Let  the  fairyland  extend  on 
into  life,  in  poetry  and  prose,  leading  to 
the  higher  and  maturer  flights  of  the  imag- 
ination which  open  so  many  vistas  of  truth. 
Hard  facts  come  only  too  soon,  and  they 
are  not  half  so  hard  if  we  may  still  have 
our  dreams. 

"  Reading  without  tears  "  becomes  an 
actual  fact  for  the  child  whose  mind  has 
been  somewhat  ordered  by  the  nursery. 
Six  or  seven  is  old  enough  to  begin  this 
more  serious  business.  Two  little  boys 
who  knew  their  alphabets  came  to  me  for 
their  first  lessons  in  reading.  We  sat  at 
the  window  overlooking  the  playground 
and  the  pond.  I  made  up  a  little  story  of 
what  we  saw,  while  they  watched  the  main 
facts  being  printed  in  words  of  one  sylla- 
ble.   They  soon  took  up  the  printing  for 


THE  NURSERY  57 

themselves  from  my  dictation  and  their 
own  suggestions.  Each  day,  while  we 
added  new  matter,  we  read  the  old.  Their 
interest  being  aroused  by  making  the  ex- 
ercise a  growth  from  their  own  little  lives ; 
their  eyes,  their  ears,  and  their  memories 
being  called  on  to  do  their  parts,  it  was 
wonderful  how  soon  and  happily  they  got 
over  the  difficulties  of  the  start. 

While  it  is  a  laudable  effort  to  make 
lessons  attractive  and  to  give  to  learning 
its  true  place  in  the  natural  and  happy  de- 
velopment of  a  child's  mind,  lessons  are 
not  play.  The  power  to  work  and  concen- 
trate thought  is  the  end  in  view,  and  this 
can  be  attained  only  by  work  and  concen- 
tration. The  habit  of  patient  close  work 
without  prompting  from  a  teacher  cannot 
be  cultivated  too  early.  The  Kindergarten 
does  not  seem  to  accomplish  this  result. 
Either  we  do  not  know  how  to  work  it,  or 
it  is  unsuitable  to  our  American  life  of 
independence.  The  product  of  the  Kinder- 
garten, so  far  as  I  have  seen  it,  is  a  men- 
tal dependence  and  a  lack  of  real  industry 
that  are  destructive  to  scholarship.  The 
ordinary  nursery  school  is  little  better. 
It  is  true,  the  child  has  more  initiative,  but 


58      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

the  detention  for  a  certain  number  of 
hours,  the  waiting  before  an  open  book  till 
so  much  time  has  passed  or  so  many  other 
children  have  been  ' '  heard, "  is  a  dreadful 
performance.  Moreover,  instead  of  work- 
ing out  alone  and  undisturbed  short  por- 
tions, the  child  forms  the  habit  of  turning 
to  the  teacher  for  explanation  of  every 
little  difficulty.  The  whole  plan  should  be 
different.  For  subjects  that  require  close 
attention  there  should  be  a  quiet  room. 
The  limit  of  attendance  should  be  not  time, 
but  work  accomplished,  and  the  little  one 
should  be  encouraged  in  every  way  to  work 
quickly  and  accurately.  As  has  been  well 
said,  "  The  first  lesson  of  education  is  the 
lesson  of  getting  down  to  hard  work  and 
doing  the  work  thoroughly." 

This  whole  subject  is  one  of  such  im- 
portance that  I  take  the  liberty  here  of 
quoting  a  few  paragraphs  from  a  paper 
of  Dr.  Briggs  read  before  the  Department 
of  Superintendence  at  Chicago,  February, 
1901 :  ' '  What  threatens  our  early  educa- 
tion nowadays  is  the  amusement  and  va- 
riety theory.  Working  upward  from  the 
Kindergarten,  it  bids  fair  to  weaken  the 
intellect  and  to  sap  the  will.    A  well-known 


THE  NURSERY  69 

teacher  in  Boston  had  no  difficulty  in  pick- 
ing out  the  members  of  his  school  who  had 
begun  their  education  in  the  Kindergarten; 
and  he  picked  them  out  because  of  a  weak-, 
ness  in  their  intellectual  processes.  There 
are  exceptions,  and  notable  ones ;  and  there 
is,  as  everybody  knows,  a  lovely  side  to  the 
Kindergarten:  but  the  danger  of  the  Kin- 
dergarten principle  is  felt  by  many  a 
teacher  who  hardly  dares  hint  at  it.  An 
elective  system  in  college  gives  a  noble 
liberty  to  the  man  who  has  been  so  trained 
that  he  can  use  his  liberty  wisely;  but 
when  an  elective  system  goes  lower  and 
lower  into  our  schools  till  it  meets  children 
who  have  been  amused  through  the  years 
in  which  they  should  have  been  educated, 
what  chance  have  these  children  for  the 
best  thing  in  education? 

"  *  On  a  huge  hill, 
Cragged  and  steep,  truth  stands;  and  he  that 
will 
Reach  her  about  must,  and  about  it  go, 
And  what  th'  hill's  suddenness  resists,  win  so.' 

''  That  I  am  not  fighting  shadows  or 
knocking  down  men  of  straw,  the  testi- 
mony of  a  hundred  teachers  and  parents 


60      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

makes  clear.  The  amusement  theory, 
starting  in  an  honest  and  benignant  desire 
to  show  children  the  beauty  of  the  world 
about  them  and  to  rouse  their  interest  in 
study,  especially  in  the  study  of  nature, 
may  end  with  the  sacrifice  of  strength  in 
the  pulpit  and  of  truth  in  the  teacher ;  may 
become  a  sweetmeat  theory,  giving  the 
children  food  which  debilitates  and  de- 
ranges the  organs  that  crave  it. 

*'  Certainly  the  education  of  boys  should 
not  be  a  bore  and  a  bugbear,  nor  should 
it  ignore  culture.  Yet  the  culture  should 
not  crowd  out  training;  it  should  rather 
be  atmospheric;  it  should  come  to  the  boy 
from  the  finer,  maturer,  and  more  sensitive 
character  of  his  teacher;  it  should  take 
little  visible  or  tangible  part  in  the  school 
programme ;  it  should  pervade  the  whole. ' ' 

Let  us  consider  some  lines  of  teaching  in 
the  nursery.  For  the  imbibing  of  ideas, 
pictures,  accompanied  with  story-telling, 
are  the  simplest  forms.  The  child  soon 
learns  to  express  itself  in  the  same  way, 
by  telling  stories  in  its  turn  and  using  its 
own  pencil.  When  reading  begins,  spelling 
begins.  The  habit  of  observation  should 
be  cultivated  by  making  the  spelling  lesson 


THE  NURSERY  61 

consist  of  words  chosen  from  the  reading 
and  spelled  and  pronounced  by  syllables: 
words  missed  should  be  written  and 
learned  for  next  day,  so  that  both  eye  and 
ear  are  trained  to  supplement  each  other 
in  the  memory.  Correct  and  distinct  pro- 
nunciation and  intonation  in  reading  are 
the  very  elements  for  lack  of  which  many 
go  through  life  handicapped.  The  writing 
from  memory  and  imagination  of  small 
essays  may  be  done  with  great  advantage 
at  an  early  stage,  as  well  as  copying  short 
bits  of  simple  prose  and  poetry,  sometimes 
to  be  learned  by  heart  and  carefully  recited. 
Writing  from  dictation  should  be  added  as 
soon  as  practical. 

Geography  is  an  excellent  nursery  study. 
The  first  ideas  may  be  built  about  the  geog- 
raphy of  the  home,  but  for  serious  study 
the  globe  is  indispensable.  The  child  can- 
not begin  too  early  to  look  at  all  things 
in  their  mutual  relations.  The  mere  round- 
ness of  the  globe  impresses  itself  upon  the 
young  imagination  in  a  way  never  to  be 
forgotten.  And  in  these  days  of  travel  it 
is  easy  to  keep  constantly  in  view  the  rela- 
tions to  each  other  of  ditferent  nations,  as 
well  as  of  different  lands.    The  background 


62      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

of  the  Geography  should  always  be  the  life 
of  the  loeople.  There  are  phases  of  the 
history  and  life  of  every  people  that  are 
of  intense  interest  to  the  nursery  child.  As 
they  progress  from  one  country  to  another, 
with  the  map  and  the  globe  always  before 
them,  the  few  names  of  principal  localities 
being  memorized  in  conjunction  with  a 
study  of  their  inhabitants,  gives  the  whole 
subject  plenty  of  life.  The  drawing  of 
maps  and  filling  in  of  blank  outlines  and 
the  writing  out  their  impressions  of  the  life 
of  the  people,  are  excellent  exercises  and 
entirely  practical  from  the  start. 

Arithmetic,  of  course,  is  indispensable. 
Mental  drill  is  the  main  thing:  to  see  that 
the  child  understands  the  simple  properties 
of  numbers,  then  to  lead  him  to  the  point 
of  answering  very  rapidly,  building  up,  and 
learning  perfectly  as  he  builds,  his  multi- 
plication table.  This  can  be  driven  home 
and  fixed  permanently  by  varying  ques- 
tions on  simple  factors,  divisors,  quotients, 
and  dividends.  The  yoimg  mind  will  al- 
ways avoid  the  use  of  names  and  defini- 
tions if  possible,  but  should  carefully  be 
trained  to  the  contrary.  The  written  work 
should  coincide  with  the  oral  and  should  be 
done   as   far  as  practical   without  help. 


THE  NURSERY  63 

The  spirit  to  be  fostered  is  that  of  the 
youngster  who,  after  laboriously  studying 
out  and  completing  his  first  little  i)roblem, 
and  finding  that  his  answer  corresponded 
with  that  in  the  book,  came  triumphantly 
to  his  teacher  with  the  remark,  "  The  book 
is  right." 

History  should  not  be  introduced  till  the 
child's  mind  is  stocked  with  hero  stories 
of  great  men.  This  gives  the  appetite ;  and 
as  these  men  appear  there  is  something 
tangible  on  which  to  build  the  outlines  of 
history.  Not  only  is  the  interest  awakened 
and  the  memory  stimulated,  but  the  young 
heart  is  early  filled  with  ideals  which 
should  live.  Eecitations  in  History  should 
be  varied,  as  in  Geography  and  Reading, 
by  writing  and  telling  orally  the  substance 
of  the  lesson.  There  is  absolutely  no  way 
to  acquire  facility  of  expression  except  by 
practice.  The  answer,  "  I  know  it,  but  I 
can't  say  it,"  should  never  be  admitted  as 
evidence.  Half-answers  pieced  out  by  the 
teacher,  guesses,  and  inarticulate  mum- 
bling are  not  to  be  tolerated.  Let  the  lan- 
guage be  as  simple  as  need  be,  but  require 
a  finished  thought  expressed  both  in  the 
writing  and  in  the  oral  exercise.  Such  care 
in  expression  is  worth  while  in  itself,  and 


64      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

at  the  same  time  it  produces  care  in  thought 
and  stimulates  originality.  It  is  wonder- 
ful how  soon  the  child  begins  to  think  for 
himself.  The  point  is  to  foster  that  de- 
sire on  healthy  and  helpful  lines,  and  so 
prepare  the  little  one  for  his  emancipation 
from  the  nursery  into  the  world  of  school. 

Fortunate  indeed  are  those  little  ones 
whose  minds  and  hearts  turn  naturally  to 
music.  Not  only  to  them  should  be  given 
every  chance,  but  for  all  there  should  be 
place  found  for  training  in  singing.  In 
no  way  perhaps  can  high  ideals  and  fel- 
lowship be  so  easily  and  delightfully  taught 
as  in  music. 

While  the  love  of  flowers  and  of  all 
things  beautiful  in  nature  and  in  art  is  an 
important  thing  to  cultivate  in  the  nur- 
sery, children  are  different  in  their  capac- 
ities for  such  things,  and  great  care  should 
be  taken  not  to  quench  the  delight  in 
beauty  by  a  too  careful  analysis,  or  by  its 
association  with  distasteful  work.  Open 
the  way  for  discovery  rather  than  force 
the  child  along  a  beaten  track.  A  very  few 
subjects  suffice  for  the  work  of  the  nur- 
sery school,  and  a  very  few  hours  for  its 
accomplishment.  From  one  to  three  hours 
a  day  is  the  limit  of  detention  for  children 


THE  NURSERY  65 

between  the  ages  of  seven  and  twelve,  and 
these  hours  should  be  liberally  provided 
with  recesses.  The  custom  of  sending  the 
little  ones  to  school  in  order  to  get  them 
out  of  the  way  or  to  keep  them  quiet  is  a 
menace  to  education.  They  may  learn  to 
be  comparatively  quiet,  but  they  surely  do 
learn  to  be  idle.  One  of  the  objects  of  this 
early  training,  namely  that  of  concentra- 
tion, is  completely  defeated.  In  a  large 
majority  of  cases,  the  first  three  or  four 
years  of  a  young  child's  experience  in  the 
school-room  had  much  better  have  been 
left  out  or  spent  rather  in  the  fields.  The 
child  left  alone  will  find  lots  of  objects 
which  stimulate  thought  and  reflection, 
whereas  the  child  hemmed  in  by  the  walls 
of  a  room  and  faced  by  a  distasteful  book 
is  simply  being  robbed  of  his  natural  heri- 
tage of  permission  to  grow. 

It  must  ever  be  borne  in  mind  that  these 
years  are  the  years  when  memory  is  most 
retentive,  and  no  care  is  too  great  to  in- 
sure the  memorizing  of  beautiful  forms  of 
thought  in  prose  and  poetry,  the  full  intent 
of  which  will  dawn  only  upon  the  maturer 
years.  It  is  the  age  for  firmly  planting 
ideals,  so  that  the  appetite  may  be  whetted 
and  the  desire  for  work  aroused. 


IV 

SCHOOL 

HAPPY  the  man  who  can  look  back 
to  his  school  with  love,  the  fra- 
grance of  whose  early  days  never  passes 
wholly  from  his  life.  We  do  not  mean 
merely  that  sentiment  that  wraps  the  early 
life  of  most  men,  but  we  mean  that  solid 
happiness  that  lives  on  from  the  boy's  life 
to  the  man's — the  happiness  that  grows 
only  when  the  life  is  growing,  the  kind  of 
happiness  that  is  ever  the  test  of  the  true 
school.  For,  after  all,  education  is  but 
healthy  growth  toward  perfection;  and 
healthy  growth  is  the  only  state  of  solid 
content.  Education,  in  its  broadest  sense, 
is,  as  has  been  well  said, ''  the  transmission 
of  life  from  the  living  to  the  living. ' ' 

To  the  young  everything  is  alive,  even 
the  ''  stocks  and  stones  "  of  the  familiar 
wayside, — each  has  its  message  of  life ;  and 
it  is  to  the  school  that  we  look  to  convey 

66 


SCHOOL  67 

that  message  truly.  Memory  is  the  pre- 
dominant faculty  of  the  child,  and  it  is 
with  amazement  that  the  man  considers  the 
mass  of  material  stored  in  those  early 
years  of  light  and  sunshine.  Therefore,  it 
is  of  the  first  importance  that  the  school 
should  still  carry  on,  with  the  happiness 
of  the  home,  the  task  of  proposing  the 
highest  and  best  things  to  be  remembered, 
— such  scenes  of  life,  such  words  of  life 
as  one  should  want  always  to  remember. 
The  home,  the  nursery,  and  the  school  are 
the  places  for  setting  up  ideals.  The  uni- 
versity has  comparatively  little  to  do  with 
that  side  of  education.  As  one  of  the  great- 
est of  school-masters  used  often  to  say, 
**  The  first  duty  of  a  school  is  to  raise  and 
hold  high  the  standard  of  life." 

In  the  early  days  of  one  of  our  great 
schools,  it  was  my  privilege  to  be  present 
at  a  certain  "  prize  day."  After  a  few 
words  from  the  head-master,  one  of  the 
trustees  gave  from  his  own  experience  a 
short  account  of  the  inception  of  the  school. 
During  their  family  drives  over  that  beau- 
tiful country  they  used  constantly  to  pass 
a  certain  field  which  greatly  attracted  an 
invalid  sister.     She  would  playfully  re- 


68      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

mark  that  some  day  she  was  going  to  buy 
that  field  and  build  a  home  there.  From 
this  the  custom  grew  of  calling  it  "  The 
Field  Home."  After  the  sister's  death, 
this  field  became  in  their  eyes  a  sacred 
spot,  and  when  the  opportunity  presented 
itself  of  helping  to  start  a  boys'  school, 
they  bought  the  field  and  gave  it  as  the 
home  of  the  school.  Then  this  gentleman 
went  on  to  draw  a  very  true  and  simple 
picture  of  what  a  school  should  be :  first,  a 
home,  giving  all  the  individual  and  per- 
sonal care  of  a  home,  developing  all  those 
finer  traits  which  grow  only  in  the  sunshine 
of  love  and  fellowship;  second,  a  field  for 
the  wider  use  of  all  the  powers  of  the  boy 
looking  to  his  manhood  in  the  world — a 
field  where  he  may  try  out  himself  with  his 
fellows  in  preparation  for  the  larger  field 
of  the  world.  The  words  of  this  trustee 
found  a  ready  echo  in  the  heart  of  more 
than  one,  as  the  years  were  soon  to  prove. 
No  better  word  could  be  coined  to  describe 
a  true  school,  and  few  men  have  so  realized 
their  hopes  as  those  who  built  their  wall 
upon  that ' '  Field-Home. ' ' 

For  the  boy  or  girl  at  school,  nothing  in 
nature,  nothing  in  art,  nothing  in  man,  can 


SCHOOL  69 

be  too  beautiful,  if  it  is  ever  borne  in  mind 
that  education  to  robust  and  beautiful  man- 
hood is  the  end  in  view,  and  not  the  lust  of 
the  eye  or  the  pride  of  life.  Luxury  and  all 
that  goes  to  weaken  life  work  is  absolutely 
out  of  place  in  school,  for,  as  we  shall  note 
more  plainly  below,  work,  in  its  broadest 
sense,  work,  and  the  joy  of  work,  is  the 
business  of  School. 

While  every  detail  for  the  accomplish- 
ment of  the  perfection  of  our  ' '  home  ' '  in 
order  to  plant  in  the  memoiy  the  right  kind 
of  ideal,  and  to  give  to  each  and  every  boy 
a  full  measure  of  its  life;  while  every  de- 
tail for  the  rounding  out  of  our  field  in  or- 
der to  give  play  to  every  faculty  that  makes 
for  preparation  to  a  world  of  fellowship; 
while  every  detail  should  be  carefully 
worked  up,  let  us  consider  the  subject  in 
a  more  general  way  under  two  main  heads, 
which  we  may  call  ' '  the  man  ' '  and  ' '  the 
wall." 

During  this  inquiry  is  always  the  under- 
lying question  of  the  end  of  it  all.  To 
quote  from  the  great  head-master  of  Up- 
pingham, Edward  Thring;  "■  The  practical 
question  is,  what  process  will  turn  a  man 
out  best  fitted  to  do  life  work,  and  enable 
mankind  as  a  race  to  do  their  best?    As 


70       PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

definite  a  question,  as  the  question,  what 
process  is  necessary  to  make  a  deal-box  I 
And  the  first  answer  to  this  question  is 
equally  definite  and  clear:  that  process, 
namely,  which  best  produces  power  in  man 
himself,  and  makes  him  most  capable  of 
employing  his  faculties  in  the  best  way. 
This  gives  a  starting-jDoint  at  once.  Power 
in  a  man's  self  is  the  work  of  education; 
and  how  to  produce  it  the  inquiry." 

This  naturally  brings  us  to  the  consid- 
eration of  the  7nan  in  ''  school."  Per- 
haps no  one  has  better  demonstrated  the 
power  of  the  ' '  man  "  in  "  school ' '  than 
Edward  Thring  himself.  Called  to  an  old. 
foundation  with  centuries  of  dead  life  be- 
hind, under  a  board  of  trustees  who  wanted 
nothing  else,  and  vigorously  opposed  all 
change;  in  a  part  of  England  most  unat- 
tractive ;  in  a  sleepy  and  hostile  town  gov- 
erned in  obstinate  ignorance  and  disregard 
of  the  laws  of  health, — the  ''  man  "  rose 
above  it  all;  rose  above  even  a  series  of 
fever  epidemics  which  nearly  swamped  the 
school ;  and  he  carried  off  the  whole  estab- 
lishment of  more  than  three  hundred  boys 
and  masters  to  an  empty  hotel  by  the  sea. 
He  refused  to  return  till  all  had  been  set 


SCHOOL  71 

right.  The  ^'  man  "  finally  triumphed  over 
every  obstacle  of  nature  and  stupidity  of 
man,  and  at  his  death  among  his  boys  left 
a  school  the  like  of  which  in  loyalty  and 
fine  manly  tone,  in  scholarship  and  morals, 
England  has  never  surpassed. 

First,  then,  in  the  character  of  any 
school  is  the  character  of  the  head-master 
and  of  his  associates.  Every  one  who  has 
had  anything  to  do  with  boys  in  ''  school  " 
knows  that  the  most  potent  force  to  rule  is 
public  opinion;  and  it  seems  fair  to  say 
that  the  private  characters  of  the  masters 
go  far,  very  far,  toward  moulding  public 
opinion.  We  have  discussed  at  some 
length  in  a  former  chapter  the  "  person- 
ality of  the  teacher,"  and  all  that  we  wish 
to  do  here  is  to  recall  the  conclusions  there 
stated  and  to  apply  them  to  the  forming 
and  maintaining  of  a  tone  in  '^  school." 
The  subtle  influence  of  character  in  the  in- 
di^^dual  is  what  produces  that  subtle  fac- 
tor of  life  in  a  community  which  we  call 
**  tone  ";  and  this  is  the  unseen  guide  of 
public  opinion.  The  character  of  the  head- 
master, we  might  almost  say,  determines 
this  character  and  tone  of  the  school.  He 
is  the  heart.  He  can  perhaps  buy  the  head. 


72      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

but  lie  must  he  the  heart  which  sustains  the 
flow  of  life  all  through  the  school.  Inspir- 
ing fear  in  the  hearts  of  evildoers,  and 
courage  in  the  hearts  of  the  weak,  while  he 
walks  alone  and  above  all,  his  door  is  open 
to  every  kind  of  boy  and  man  with  the 
surety  of  justice  and  mercy. 

One  wrote,  at  fifty,  of  his  old  school  and 
its  head :  ' '  I  suppose  I  was  about  as  hope- 
less a  boy  as  any  who  ever  attended — but  I 
don't  believe  that  there  was  ever  a  boy 
there  who  had  more  loving  care  and  sym- 
pathy extended  to  him  by .    I  did  not 

appreciate  it  then  as  I  should  have  done, 
and  I  was  unworthy  and  ungrateful,  but 
somehow  the  older  I  grow  the  closer  to  me 
seems  to  come  his  love  and  never-failing 
kindness,  and,  while  it  did  me  little  a^Dpar- 
ent  good  at  the  time,  its  influence  has  fol- 
lowed me  through  life  and  always  for  the 

making  of  a  better  man.    was  the  best 

man  and  the  truest  friend  who  ever  came 
into  my  life.  His  words  to  me,  spoken  in 
his  study,  fell  then  upon  listless  ears,  but 
unwittingly  I  took  them  deep  into  my  heart 
and  their  echo  has  come  to  me  in  many  an 
hour  when  I  needed  just  such  help." 

Such  a  head-master  wins  the  best  of  men 


SCHOOL  73 

and  boys  to  rally  round  liim  for  tlie  best 
and  highest  interests,  and  there  is  no  tell- 
ing how  far  such  an  influence  goes.  He 
draws  his  masters  around  him  not  only 
with  cords  of  a  common  work,  but  in  cords 
of  a  common  life.  He  is  the  one  to  forge 
all  the  links  of  different  metal  into  a  living 
chain  with  which  to  draw  his  school  ever 
to  higher  levels.  Without  this  "  unity  in 
itself,"  little  definite  impression  is  left 
on  the  boy ;  and,  moreover,  power  is  wasted 
and  perhaps  despised. 

Public  opinion,  rightly  formed  and  sus- 
tained, is  therefore,  perhaps,  the  chief  task 
of  the  head-master ;  a  task,  however,  which 
involves  many  other  tasks.  I  shall  never 
forget  the  effect  upon  myself  and  my  com- 
panions of  the  finality  with  which  our  old 
master  would  say, ' '  That  is  one  of  our  tra- 
ditions," or,  "  That  is  fixed."  He  himself 
sat  before  us  as  the  personification  of 
''tradition,"  as  he  said,  "  We  have  never 
given  in  to  that  in  this  place,"  or,  "  That 
was  settled  years  ago." 

It  is  also  directly  through  the  head- 
master that  the  life  of  a  school  is  impressed 
upon  the  individual  boy;  that  the  boy  is 
happy  and  proud  to  be  appealed  to  as  a 


74      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

member  of  a  great  school,  on  whom  the 
privilege  develops  of  handing  on  what  he 
has  received. 

The  power  of  the  solid  character  of  such 
a  "  man  "  comes  out  in  every  detail  of  his 
contact  with  his  boys ;  the  seasonable  word 
is  his  readiest  tool,  not  only  for  influenc- 
ing the  individual  directly,  but  also  for 
creating  and  sustaining  the  ^'  tone  "  of 
the  place.  Scolding  or  threats  or  what 
boys  call  "  jaw,"  or  much  talking  of  any 
kind,  makes  boys  unresponsive  and  hard. 
There  is  nothing  to  which  a  head-master 
will  give  greater  attention  than  the  spoken 
word.  It  is  impossible  to  estimate  the 
force  of  truth  put  in  a  kindly  way,  whether 
in  private  or  public.  We  are  all  ready  to 
testify,  as  has  been  testified  above,  that, 
though  the  ears  of  our  youth  would  feign 
have  been  dull  to  what  seemed  hard,  cer- 
tain plain  words  given  to  us  with  looks  of 
love  and  personal  interest  have  echoed  all 
through  our  lives.  And  in  the  crowd  evil 
will  always  hide  or  show  its  true  self  when 
good  is  outspoken.  A  school  without  the 
*'  man  "  to  speak  may  be  a  "  field  "  for 
rowdyism  or  play,  or  even  worse,  but  not  a 
**  home  "  with  store  of  honored  tradition. 


SCHOOL  75 

When  we  speak  of  tradition,  we  are 
crossing  the  bridge  from  the  "  man  "  to  the 
* '  wall. ' '  Tradition,  fixed  as  firm  as  a  wall, 
is  as  necessary  for  the  true  life  of  a  school 
as  the  wall  of  the  house  in  which  the  boys 
live.  And,  moreover,  the  one  is  as  useless 
as  the  other  if  there  is  no  life  within ;  per- 
haps worse,  as  hypocrisy  and  fraud  are 
only  too  ready  to  hire  the  empty  tradition. 
Blow  it  up  first,  for  it  is  sure  to  crumble 
and  decay  with  such  tenants,  and  the 
crumbling  process  is  dangerous.  If,  how- 
ever, there  is  a  spark  of  the  old  life  of 
truth  within,  open  the  windows,  let  in  light 
and  air,  and  the  old  friend  will  revive,  and 
we  may  save  his  old  home  by  timely  repair ; 
let  fresh  bricks  be  laid  into  the  same  old 
wall  to  make  it  fair  again.  Growing  life 
must  be  built  in  with  every  brick  and  stone, 
and  laid  true  with  the  well-mixed  mortar 
of  experience,  that  both  lovers  of  the  old 
and  disciples  of  the  new  may  freely  and 
willingly  give  their  lives  to  the  building. 

Such  is  the  "  living  wall  "  that  protects 
the  ''  Field-Home."  In  other  words,  with 
every  effort  at  perfection  of  material  wall 
and  system,  the  ''  personality  "  of  the 
school  should  never  be  lost.    Personality, 


76      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

with  its  growing  and  expanding  life,  is  as 
necessary  in  an  institution  of  education  as 
in  the  individual  man,  and  there  is  the 
same  danger  in  the  one  as  in  the  other,  of 
the  weakening  of  growth  by  a  too  great 
dependence  on  system  and  on  all  other  out- 
ward appliances  which  become  embodied  in 
the  walls  of  brick  and  stone.  The  ''  wall," 
whether  of  tradition,  of  system,  of  natural 
surroundings,  or  of  buildings,  may  be  the 
' '  Almighty  wall  ' '  indeed,  both  for  protec- 
tion and  for  direction,  but,  like  any  habit 
for  the  man,  it  must  be  the  slave  and  not 
the  master  of  the  life,  if  it  is  to  be  instru- 
mental in  creating  power.  Moreover,  un- 
less it  is  a  growing  wall,  it  is  sure  to  be- 
come a  barrier  and  to  turn  school  to  prison. 

Some  words  written  by  George  Tyrrell, 
in  regard  to  the  use  of  system  in  the  life 
of  man,  apply  so  directly  to  the  same  sub- 
ject in  school  as  to  make  them  worth  the 
quoting  to  a  teacher, — we  are  all  so 
tempted  to  put  too  much  upon  system. 

He  writes :  ' '  Personality,  in  the  moral 
sense  of  the  term,  means  spiritual  freedom 
and  self-mastery;  and  admits  of  endless 
measures  of  depth  and  extension.  So  far 
as  we  are  passively  borne  along  by  our  feel- 


SCHOOL  77 

ings,  our  habits  and  inclirmtions ;  so  far  as 
we  are  but  wheels  in  the  great  mecha- 
nism of  nature  and  are  governed  by  physi- 
cal, physiological,  and  psychological  laws 
without  attempting  to  use  and  control  them ; 
just  so  far  are  we  things  and  not  persons. 
We  are  jDersons  in  the  measure  that  we 
oppose  ourselves  to  all  this  mechanism, 
and  through  the  understanding  of  it,  are 
able  to  subject  and  use  it  to  spiritual  ends. 

"  '  God  made  man  only  a  little  lower 
than  the  angels,'  in  so  far  as  He  '  put  all 
things  under  his  feet  ' ;  and  man  approxi- 
mates indefinitely  to  the  Divine  ideal  of 
personality  in  the  measure  that  he  raises 
himself  higher  and  higher  above  nature  by 
knowledge  and  self-control. 

**  But  it  is  first  within  himself  that  man 
comes  in  conflict  with  this  mechanism ;  with 
uniformities  of  instinct  and  habit;  with 
psychological  and  physiological  laws  that 
tend  to  wrest  the  government  out  of  the 
hands  of  the  spirit  and  to  destroy  person- 
ality. For  in  virtue  of  his  bodily  organ- 
ism, man  is  a  part  of  nature  and  continu- 
ous with  nature, — a  wheel  in  the  universal 
machine.  He  must,  then,  master  nature 
within  himself,  as  well  as  outside  himself 


78      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCx\TION 

— a  mastery  that  demands  difficult  self- 
knowledge,  laborious  self-discipline.  When 
we  remember  that  virtues  and  vices  are 
both  classified  as  '  habits,'  it  is  plain  that 
a  habit  as  such  is  neither  good  nor  evil. 
A  good  habit  is  a  psychological  mechanism 
that  frees  our  personality  for  fuller  and 
wider  action,  that  extends  our  control 
over  nature  within  or  outside  ourselves; 
whereas  an  evil  habit  impedes  our  free- 
dom and  narrows  the  possibilities  of  life. 
Conditioned  as  we  are,  the  same  mecha- 
nism of  nature  or  habit  which  can  impede 
us  and  destroy  our  personality  is  also  the 
necessary  means  of  our  spiritual  develop- 
ment. If  our  struggle  is  against  the  domi- 
nation of  dead  uniformity,  law,  habit, 
mechanism,  it  is  only  because  such  laws 
or  habits,  once  perhaps  useful,  have  be- 
come mischievous  through  changing  exi- 
gencies and  the  demands  of  a  higher  life; 
because  the  virtues  of  childhood  may  be 
vices  in  manhood;  or  because  these  laws 
cross  and  interfere  with  one  another,  and 
need  an  adjustment  of  their  claims.  But 
the  whole  aim  of  our  struggle  is  the  con- 
stitution of  a  higher  and  better  system  of 
laws:  not  the  destruction,  but  the  recon- 


SCHOOL  79 

struction  of  tlie  liabit-meclianism.  The 
very  inertia  and  blind  persistence  which 
we  have  to  overcome  is  necessary  to  the 
perpetuity  and  stability  of  the  fruits  of 
victory.  That  old  self  which  has  to  be 
moulded  into  the  new,  though  blind  and 
dead,  has  in  its  day  been  shaped  by  life 
and  intelligence,  and  bears  their  traces,  as 
a  mindless  mechanism  bears  the  traces  of 
the  mind  that  devised  it.  So,  too,  in  the 
physical  world  the  principle  of  death  is 
also  a  condition  of  life.  The  determinism 
of  Nature,  with  her  system  of  fixed  laws, 
of  uniformities  of  grouping  and  sequence, 
is  itself  the  work  of  spirit, — the  gathered 
fruit  of  its  past  victories, — and  yet  its 
blind  conservatism  makes  it  the  foe  of 
spirit  so  far  as  it  not  merely  retains  past 
modifications,  but  in  doing  so  resists 
further  developments,  yielding  only  to  vig- 
orous and  reiterated  onslaughts  of  the  will. 
Hence  the  complex  character  of  our  senti- 
ment toward  nature  as  towards  something 
at  once  blind  and  intelligent,  cruel  and 
kind,  coarse  and  tender,  forceful  and  fee- 
ble, sublime  and  despicable. 

'*  As  long  as  life  lasts  there  is  need  of 
this  work  of  self-reform.    Every  new  attain- 


80      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

ment  involves  higher  and  more  complex 
tasks;  just  as  every  industrial  invention 
saves  labor  in  one  way  only  to  employ  it 
more  extensively  and  profitably  in  another. 
Moreover,  we  now  understand  what  the  old 
ascetics  had  ascertained  empirically,  that 
not  to  advance  is  to  recede;  that  there  is 
no  standing  still  in  the  moral  and  spiritual 
life.  For,  like  machinery,  habits  quickly 
become  out  of  date  and  act  as  a  clog  on 
progress,  unless  they  are  continually  ad- 
justed to  suit  growing  exigencies.  "When 
virtue  gets  to  routine  it  is  on  the  road  to 
vice.  So  far  as  our  conduct  is  shaped  by 
virtue  and  habit,  it  is  shaped  passively; 
it  is  not  active  in  the  full  spiritual  sense. 
Yet  we  must  deliberately  commit  a  great 
deal  of  it  to  the  machinery  of  habit  or 
second  nature,  if  we  are  to  free  our  best 
energies  for  higher  and  fuller  action  and 
origination.  But  if  we  turn  the  means  to 
an  end,  and  think  to  rest  in  habituality  and 
routine,  the  spirit  falls  asleep  and  ceases 
to  be  conscious  and  self-determining.'* 

While  every  thinking  man  must  acknowl- 
edge the  wisdom  of  these  remarks,  they 
seem  doubly  interesting  and  freighted  with 
wisdom  for  the  teacher,  who  will  apply 


J    SCHOOL  81 

them  equally  to  his  own  life  and  that  of 
his  school. 

May  the  writer  again  be  pardoned  if 
he  recalls  the  early  days  in  which  he  at 
times  marvelled  at  the  apparent  disregard 
of  the  "  wall  "  expressed  in  the  life  of  the 
head-master  of  our  old  school.  While  none 
could  be  more  firm  about  tradition,  cus- 
tom, and  the  fixity  of  habit,  there  was  ever 
going  on  the  making  of  tradition,  the  up- 
building of  custom  and  of  habit,  with  a 
mistrust  of  all  unalterable  method  in  ma- 
terial wall  or  printed  rule,  with  such  a 
ready  adaptability  to  timely  devices  and 
quick  appreciation  of  improvement  and 
growth  that  this  man  in  his  great  humanity 
seemed  the  very  antithesis  of  system  in 
*'  wall  "  or  "  man."  Brimming  with  life 
himself,  all  that  he  touched  sprung  to  use- 
fulness in  its  simplest  and  most  direct 
form.  So  far  as  there  was  any  system,  it 
was  to  emphasize  the  personality/  of  boy 
and  man,  to  make  his  school  a  living  thing, 
to  "pass  on  life  from  the  living  to  the  liv- 
ing." While  we  have  seen  this  system 
work,  we  have  seen  the  other  thing  fail: 
good  and  able  men  in  their  degree  apply- 
ing  machinery,    forcing   habits    good    in 


82      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

themselves  till  they  have  come  to  be  the 
very  coffins  for  both  the  men  and  their 
boys. 

Therefore,  as  a  school  grows  in  size,  it 
is  necessary  to  develop  a  system  that  al- 
ways tends  to  accentuate  the  responsibility 
of  every  master  for  every  boy.  The  unity  of 
the  ' '  home  ' '  and  the  care  of  the  ' '  home  '  * 
for  each  and  every  individual,  are  charac- 
teristics never  to  be  lost.  When  a  school 
becomes  so  large  that  the  head-master  can- 
not know,  and,  in  a  way,  personally  direct 
the  life  of  every  boy,  it  begins  to  be  a  mis- 
take. Edward  Thring,  in  England,  and 
Henry  Coit,  in  America,  both  built  up  their 
own  schools,  and  both  concluded  that  three 
hundred  boys  were  about  the  limit  for  such 
a  school;  but  it  is  interesting  to  note  that 
both  allowed  the  number  to  grow  to  three 
hundred  and  thirty.  Under  a  great  head, 
the  unity  of  such  a  number,  maintained  by 
personal  force  and  by  a  ''  wall  "  which  as 
often  as  possible  gathers  the  whole  school 
into  one  body,  is  of  great  power  over  the 
individual.  There  is  a  secret  force  per- 
vading such  a  body  .that  is  ever  at  work. 
The  timely  word  spoken  to  move  the  whole 
body  gathers  force  as  the  ideal  or  thought 


SCHOOL  83 

conveyed,  like  an  electric  current,  flashes 
tlirougli  every  heart;  the  influence  on  the 
individual  of  such  a  body  at  reverent  wor- 
ship is  hardly  to  be  measured;  the  enthu- 
siasm that  catches  the  whole  school  on  the 
playground  is  directly  in  ratio  to  the  num- 
ber. And  besides  all  this,  the  individual 
boy  has  a  wider  ''  field  "  for  his  talents,  as 
well  as  a  larger  body  from  which  to  find  his 
friends  and  helpers  among  masters  and 
boys.  No  matter  how  odd  the  boy,  I  have 
never  yet  seen  one  who  did  not  find  his 
own  in  such  a  school.  There  is  no  danger 
of  one  or  two  boys  or  any  clique  of  boys 
getting  the  upper  hand :  every  boy  has,  in 
other  words,  a  better  chance  for  his  own 
individuality  in  a  large  school  than  in  a 
small  school.  At  the  same  time,  the  stand- 
ard of  excellence  may  always  be  higher,  as 
there  are  more  from  among  whom  to  draw 
the  fine  scholars,  the  fine  athletes,  the  fine 
musicians,  and,  above  all,  the  fine-hearted, 
to  be  leaders.  As  to  the  greater  number 
of  weak  boys  and  those  of  evil  influence, 
this  is  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  head- 
master. However,  let  us  remark  in  pass- 
ing that  the  nearer  the  life  can  be  kept 
natural,  with  a  chance  to  meet  and  over- 


84      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

come  the  natural  temptations,  the  better 
the  school.  A  place  weeded  of  so-called 
bad  boys,  or  even  poor  and  backward  schol- 
ars, is  no  true  home  or  natural  field.  The 
tares  and  the  wheat  must  grow  together 
here,  as  in  the  larger  field,  if  the  school 
is  to  be  a  place  of  true  education. 

In  a  discussion  among  a  body  of  school- 
masters, the  conclusion  was  being  drawn 
that  Church  schools  should  not  attempt 
to  educate  the  ' '  duffer, ' '  when  one  quietly 
asked  the  question,  "  What,  then,  is  to  be- 
come of  the  duffer?  "  This  question  put 
the  conclusion  in  its  true  light,  a  conclu- 
sion which  is  a  disgrace  to  any  Christian 
school.  Such  a  conclusion  is  perfectly  ad- 
missible in  any  special  training  for  partic- 
ular professions,  but  entirely  contrary  to 
the  whole  spirit  that  ought  to  pervade 
our  school  of  general  education  for  the 
young. 

Now  as  to  the  plan  of  our  ' '  wall ' '  in  the 
general  organization  of  a  school  that,  from 
its  size  as  well  as  from  its  unity,  is  going 
to  bring  the  greatest  good  to  the  individ- 
ual: it  has  been  well  said  that  the  head- 
master must  begin  at  the  top,  that  he  must 
produce  in  his  masters  and  older  boys  a 


SCHOOL  85 

feeling  of  trust  and  loyalty,  which  should 
filter  down  to  the  bottom.  While  there 
can  never  be  too  much  care  in  regard  to 
every  detail  of  school  management,  great 
men  may  easily  be  swamped  by  petty 
cares.  Keeping  school,  like  any  other 
business,  while  it  depends  at  one  end  on  the 
perfection  of  detail,  depends,  at  the  other, 
on  the  opportunity  of  wise  men  to  use 
their  wisdom.  The  secret  is  for  the  man 
at  the  top  to  stay  at  the  top,  to  have  his 
work  so  organized  as  to  make  his  person- 
ality felt  through  others  all  the  way  to  the 
bottom.  It  is  always  the  first  and  last 
business  of  the  head-master  to  know  thor- 
oughly his  masters  and  his  boys.  Other 
knowledge  can  be  bought,  but  this  must  be 
his  own  at  first  hand.  Gradations  of  knowl- 
edge and  gradations  of  trust  naturally  sug- 
gest circles  within  circles,  till  the  "  head  " 
stands  firmly  entrenched  in  the  hearts  of 
the  select  from  both  boys  and  men.  Xo 
business  enterprise,  least  of  all  a  school, 
can  be  successfully  conducted  and  passed 
on  unimpaired  to  future  generations  with- 
out this  mutual  confidence  between  the 
*'  head  "  and  his  lieutenants.  And  yet,  so 
all-important  is  the  factor  of  personality 


86      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

in  the  work  of  education,  and  so  engross- 
ing the  call  to  and  for  the  individual,  that 
this  corporate  strength  has  not  been  gen- 
erally attained  in  our  schools.  Greater 
appreciation  of  the  power  of  unity,  com- 
bined with  a  corresponding  stricter  self- 
discipline,  is  necessary  to  enable  the  strong 
man  to  throw  his  strength  unselfishly  into 
the  personality  of  the  whole  family.  Be 
this  as  it  may,  the  call  becomes  louder  each 
year  for  better  men  to  work  a  better 
system. 

The  natural  selection  from  among  the 
masters  for  greater  trust  and  responsibil- 
ity would  be  the  heads  of  houses.  Here 
there  arises,  then,  the  question  of  many 
small  houses  or  a  few  large  houses.  It  has 
been  my  observation  that  a  man,  or  a  man 
with  his  wife,  capable  of  properly  caring 
for  a  house  of  twenty-five  boys  in  a  large 
school  under  a  head-master,  is  capable  of 
caring  for  a  house  of  one  hundred  boys; 
and  it  is  easier  to  find  three  such  men  than 
a  dozen.  Moreover,  all  that  may  be  said 
for  a  large  school  may  also  be  said  for  a 
large  house.  There  will  always  be  excep- 
tional cases  of  boys  for  whom  special  ar- 
rangements should  be  made  in  the  j)rivate 


SCHOOL  87 

houses  of  different  masters.  But,  both  for 
sentiment  and  for  practical  purposes,  there 
is  a  mysterious  virtue  in  the  ''  three-in- 
one."  The  three  heads  of  houses  form  an 
excellent  and  practical  inner  council,  and 
each  will  have  ample  scope  for  the  use  of 
all  his  powers.  And  while  the  three  houses, 
for  all  purposes  of  individual  care  and 
house  arrangement,  are  independent,  there 
is  always  the  larger  life  of  the  whole  as 
developed  in  the  passing  of  boys  from 
house  to  house  while  they  advance  in  the 
school ;  as  developed  in  the  chapel  services, 
on  the  playground,  and  in  whatever  way 
the  personality  of  the  head-master  draws 
his  boys  together  in  unity  of  feeling  or 
action.  Under  the  '^  three-in-one,"  while 
there  is  equal  opportunity  for  attention  to 
the  individual,  there  is  less  opportunity 
for  the  growth  of  a  small  individual  spirit 
to  possess  a  house  or  the  whole  school. 

The  system  of  many  houses,  where  the 
custom  prevails  of  placing  a  boy  in  the 
same  house  for  his  whole  course,  necessi- 
tates a  household  composed  of  young  and 
old.  "\^^lile  this  is  the  natural  family  rela- 
tion, yet  it  is  not  natural  to  have  a  family 
of  twenty-five  boys  and  no  girls ;  and  these 


88      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

boys  are  not  of  the  same  blood  and  never 
can  live  in  the  natural  relation  of  blood 
brotherhood.  The  most  evident,  if  not  the 
most  practical,  way  to  work  such  a  house 
in  order  to  keep  it  even  comparatively 
pure,  is  to  establish  the  relation  between 
young  and  old  which  obtains  in  the  English 
schools — fags  and  their  masters.  This  is 
manifestly  out  of  the  question  in  America. 
The  unmanly  relations  between  young  and 
older,  so  likely  to  grow  in  large  households 
of  boys  of  no  kin  to  one  another,  seem  to 
me  a  very  grave  evil.  On  the  contrary, 
a  house  of  one  hundred  boys  of  nearly  the 
same  age  develops  an  esprit  du  corps  that 
is  not  congenial  to  petting  or  to  bullying. 
Such  a  family  has  its  own  life  of  games 
and  fellowship  that  is  a  great  advantage 
especially  to  the  little  new  boy,  to  whom  it 
gives  a  stimulus  and  happiness  that  are  al- 
most entirely  lacking  in  the  other  system. 
In  such  a  building,  also,  the  boy  of  four- 
teen or  fifteen  learns  to  shoulder  a  re- 
sponsibility and  leadership  among  his  fel- 
lows as  monitor  or  captain.  In  the 
lower  and  middle  schools  those  quali- 
ties of  a  boy  are  pretty  well  tried  out,  so 
that  when  he  comes  to  the  top  form  in  the 


SCHOOL  89 

upper  school  there  is  small  chance  to 
make  a  mistake  in  the  selection-  of  school 
leaders. 

A  well-organized  system  of  monitors  or 
prefects  is  of  vital  importance  in  school,  if 
boys  are  to  be  properly  trained  to  citizen- 
ship. Yet  such  a  system  uncontrolled  by 
the  strong  personality  of  the  head-master, 
such  a  system  when  there  is  not  mutual 
confidence  between  man  and  boy,  is  capable 
of  hatching  and  protecting  some  of  the 
worst  evils  of  school-life.  Boys  easily  lose 
heart  and  fail  miserably  in  maintaining 
high  standards  without  constant  leadership 
and  inspiration  from  their  elders.  Evil 
organizes  without  help ;  but  seldom,  if  ever, 
do  boys  get  together  for  good  of  their 
own  accord.  Eternal  vigilance  on  the  part 
of  the  teacher  is  the  price  of  order  and 
tone,  under  any  system  where  humanity  is 
the  subject. 

As  there  are  great  art  and  tact  to  be  used 
in  handling  leaders,  so  there  is  room  for 
the  best  judgment  in  the  manner  of  selec- 
tion. The  choices  that  boys  make  for 
their  various  captains,  leavened  with  a 
scholar  here  and  there  from  a  position  of 
influence,  seems  the  natural  line.    The  rule 


90      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

of  sucli  boys  should  rest,  first,  upon  their 
own  personal  characters ;  second,  upon  the 
authority  of  the  whole  body  of  monitors; 
and,  finally,  upon  the  reference  by  that 
body  of  doubtful  or  bad  cases  to  the  head- 
master. The  ordinary  channels  of  punish- 
ment used  by  the  masters  should  be 
avoided  by  the  monitors.  A  word  from  a 
monitor  to  a  lower  boy  is  generally  very 
effective.  For  a  wrongdoer  to  be  haled 
before  the  whole  body  of  monitors  is  more 
eff'ective.  Deprivation  of  certain  privi- 
leges in  games  or  other  departments  of 
school-life  under  their  supervision,  would 
be  the  means  of  punishment  used  by  them 
before  sending  up  a  boy  to  the  head-master. 
All  house  monitors  should  be  directly  re- 
sponsible to  the  captain  of  the  school  or 
otherwise  designated  head  of  the  monitors. 
Such  leaders  among  boys,  catching  the  tone 
of  loving  watchfulness  from  the  head- 
master, can  be  fairly  trusted  to  deal  suc- 
cessfully with  all  that  class  of  underhand 
mischief  or  secret  badness  that  is  ready 
to  break  loose  in  any  school. 

This  digression  on  the  monitorial  system 
crept  into  our  sketch  of  the  house  rule  sim- 
ply to  note  that  a  house  of  young  boys  can 


SCHOOL  91 

well  supply  its  own  leaders.  It  is  an  excep- 
tional nursery  where  the  oldest  child  can- 
not be  both  utilized  and  helped  by  giving 
it  a  position  of  responsibility  over  the 
others.  It  is  the  nature  and  right  of  the 
older  in  any  stage  to  protect  and  guard  the 
younger. 

Before  leaving  the  subject  of  the  division 
of  boys  into  houses  according  to  their  ages, 
let  us  note  the  great  advantage  that  comes 
to  a  boy  by  a  change  from  *'  lower  "  to 
*'  middle,"  and  again  to  ''  upper." 

The  ambition  to  go  up  higher  is  whet- 
ted and  adds  zest  to  the  life,  while  the  boy 
himself  has  another  chance  to  improve 
or  to  begin  over  with  new  men  and  new  sur^ 
roundings.  Old  friends,  if  he  has  them, 
are  not  far  away  and  still  frequently  meet 
the  boy  in  class  or  on  the  playground  or 
in  their  studies,  while  it  may  be  just  the 
new  friend,  the  one  who  "  understands," 
that  is  needful  to  put  a  boy  on  his  feet. 
There  is  a  charm  in  this  sort  of  house-to- 
house  life,  peculiar  to  itself.  A  strong 
community  of  life  between  three  separate 
large  houses  makes  also  for  growth  in  a 
remarkably  happy  and  practical  fashion. 
It  is  another  of  the  many  exemplifications 


92      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

of  the  power  of  life  embodied  in  the 
*'  three-in-one. "  The  moral  advantages  of 
such  a  system  are  akin  to  the  practical  and 
physical  ones  which  come  from  the  con- 
stant necessity  for  being  in  the  open  air, 
going  from  dormitory  to  school  and  din- 
ing-room and  library  and  chapel.  Move- 
ment is  the  life  of  the  young,  and  boys  if 
not  kept  going  healthfully  will  go  un- 
healthfully. 

Breadth  and  distinctness,  the  whole 
body  and  the  individual,  are  peculiarly 
served  by  three  families  in  the  one  great 
school. 

While  a  man  at  the  head  of  such  a  place 
has  ample  scope  for  great  powers,  the 
school  is  not  so  directly  dependent  on  the 
one  man  as  to  grow  sick  and  die  if  for  a 
time  he  fails.  Each  house  has  its  head  and 
its  independent  life,  and  may  maintain  not 
only  its  own  standard,  but  brace  each  one 
of  the  others  to  keep  up  to  high  ideals  of 
life. 

This  faculty  to  perpetuate  itself  is  a 
very  important  one  for  a  school.  It  is 
difficult  to  find  men  with  the  requisite  train- 
ing for  a  head-mastership.  The  house 
training  should  provide  this  very  thing.  In 


SCHOOL  93 

our  ideal  scliool,  three  men  would  thus  be 
always  ''  on  deck  "  and  available  for  just 
such  calls.  And  there  should  be  also,  in 
every  large  school,  provision  for  the  train- 
ing of  under  teachers.  If  a  school  is  what 
it  ought  to  be,  there  will  be  a  desire  on  the 
part  of  graduates  here  and  there  to  return 
and  teach.  For  these  men,  as  well  as  for 
all  inexperienced  teachers  coming  to  a 
place,  the  work  taken  up  should  be  with  a 
view  to  break  th&m  in  without  discourage- 
ment to  themselves  or  loss  to  the  boys. 
Such  men  should  be  assigned  as  assistants 
to  the  older  teachers,  to  attend  their 
classes,  correct  the  written  work  in  class 
and  out,  take  the  backward  boys  for  more 
individual  work,  and  do  many  things  that 
would  greatly  facilitate  the  labor  of  the 
man  skilled  in  conducting  a  class,  so  that 
he  might  do  more  of  the  work  for  which 
he  is  especially  fitted.  A  new  hand  would 
thus  have  not  only  a  chance  to  review  his 
subject  and  to  learn  the  names,  faces,  and 
ways  of  boys  without  friction,  but  would 
have  the  opportunity  also  of  observing  the 
methods  of  a  skilled  man,  and,  from  time 
to  time,  of  teaching  the  class  in  the  pres- 
ence of  his  superior.    Why  such  a  system 


94      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

is  not  universal  in  our  larger  schools,  I  do 
not  see,  unless  it  be  that  we  do  not  seri- 
ously believe  in  our  profession.  The  doc- 
tor and  the  lawyer,  even  after  years  of 
special  training,  humble  themselves  to  just 
such  personal  observation  and  supervi- 
sion; why  not  the  teacher? 

I  earnestly  look  forward  to  the  day  when 
teaching  will  be  held  in  such  honor  that 
the  best  men  will  be  pressing  into  the 
ranks,  ready  to  endure  hardships,  and 
ashamed  to  present  themselves  as  responsi- 
ble teachers  till  they  have  ivon  the  right 
to  shape  and  mould  the  life  of  man. 

When  schools  are  manned  h^  the  strong 
of  the  community,  there  will  be  no  fear  of 
the  future  of  our  country.  Under  such  in- 
fluences traditions  never  extend  an  iron 
grip ;  yet  they  never  grow  old  nor  die,  but 
live  on,  ever  filled  with  the  richest  blood  of 
living  and  life-giving  men. 


SOME   QUESTIONS   OF   EXPENSE 

THE  question  of  many  houses  or  one 
house    in    a    school,    introduces    the 
problem  of  cost. 

Good  education  will  always  be  expensive; 
therefore,  considered  merely  as  a  business 
venture,  no*  detail  is  too  small  to  be  care- 
fully scrutinized.  But  there  is  a  more  im- 
portant reason  for  such  care:  namely,  the 
necessity  laid  upon  us,  especially  at  this 
time,  of  teaching-  the  young  habits  of  econ- 
omy. The  child  who  has  always  re- 
ceived with  a  bountiful  hand  must  learn 
to  give.  To  give,  he  must  have  and  har- 
bor resources.  The  value  of  money,  as  well 
as  of  time,  is,  therefore,  an  all-important 
lesson,  and  one  that  is  learned  more  ef- 
fectually by  example  than  by  precept.  All 
that  we  can  hope  to  do  here  is  to  touch 
u^on  a  few  general  lines,  and  by  the  way  to 

95 


96      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

point  out  some  practical  methods,  both  for 
keeping  down  the  cost  of  education  and  for 
teaching  economy  to  the  child. 

Three  or  four  hundred  can  be  fed  more 
economically  in  one  large  dining-hall  than 
in  several  smaller  ones.  Yet  what  is 
gained  in  cost  does  not  seem  sufficient  to 
wipe  out  the  homelessness  of  such  a  plan. 
Separate  dining-rooms  are  a  main  feature 
in  the  sentiment  of  separate  houses.  One 
hundred  young  and  happy  people  are  about 
all  that  can  be  satisfactorily  handled  in  one 
dining-room,  if  the  manners  of  the  younger 
and  the  nerves  of  the  elder  are  to  have 
their  due  consideration.  Three  houses 
under  one  management  seem  to  combine 
efficiency  with  the  best  economy  for  a  large 
school  in  America. 

Too  much  care  cannot  be  given  to  the 
quality  of  the  food,  its  cooking,  and  its 
service.  It  is  a  truth  often  neglected  by 
spiritually-minded  men  that  the  needs  of 
the  body  must  come  first.  Money  spent  in 
wholesome,  well-cooked,  and  well-served 
food;  money  spent  in  proper  ventilation 
of  buildings;  money  spent  in  providing 
opportunity  for  ample  and  life-giving  play 
and  exercise  will  come  back  in  compound 


SOME  QUESTIONS  OP  EXPENSE     97 

interest  to  the  school.  These  things  are 
all  matters  of  plain  business  and  common- 
sense,  and  should  be  in  the  hands  of  plain 
business  and  common-sense  men.  The  day 
is  coming  when  a  school  will  be  ashamed 
to  send  in  huge  bills  to  parents  for  medi- 
cal attendance  and  infirmary  charges  that 
arise  from  poor  feeding,  poor  ventila- 
tion, and  want  of  a  regulated  and  happy 
play. 

But  the  crux  in  the  cost  of  education  is 
and  always  will  be  the  man.  Improved 
sanitary  living  embodies  itself  in  material 
appliances,  but  human  nature  is  always 
and  will  be  always  the  same  backsliding 
factor,  ever  ready  to  take  things  easy 
and  to  get  the  most  for  the  least.  In  edu- 
cation, perhaps  more  than  in  any  other 
industry,  men  must  not  only  be  paid  in 
coin  of  the  Kepublic,  but  they  must  be  paid 
in  the  coin  of  "life,"  lest  their  manhood 
fail.  The  vocation  of  the  teacher  is  hard 
and  life-destroying  unless  he  himself  be 
looked  after  and  loved.  For  some  the  old 
Italian  proverb  is  only  too  true,  "  The 
teacher  is  like  a  candle  that  burns  itself 
while  it  lights  others."  And  though  the 
oil  that  we  need  for  our  lamps  is  not 


98      PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

money,  yet  it  flows  but  slowly  through  the 
empty  pocket.  We  have  sometimes  "  to 
go  and  buy  for  ourselves." 

Let  us  consider  this  a  little  in  detail. 
The  new  head-master  of  a  new  foundation, 
in  looking  over  an  old  school  to  get 
points,  made  the  remark  that  he  had 
money  enough  at  his  disposal  to  provide 
not  only  all  the  material  advantages  in  the 
market,  but  also  the  best  men.  His  idea 
was  to  man  his  school  with  high-priced 
specialists.  The  result  was  not  all  that  he 
expected,  though  it  was  what  the  old  head- 
master of  the  old  school  predicted.  He  said 
that  he  supposed  his  friend  would  have  to 
learn  by  experience  that  a  specialist  was 
about  the  last  man  to  teach  boys ;  that  al- 
most any  ordinarily  gifted  and  trained 
man  soon  acquires  enough  of  his  subject 
to  teach  it  well  if  he  is  a  teacher;  that  an 
all-round  man  whose  specialty  is  the  boy 
is  the  kind  of  man;  that,  as  a  class,  these 
men  do  not  demand  or  want  high  salaries. 
Such  men  generally  lead  a  simple  life  from 
choice,  and  by  experience  they  learn  that 
their  power  of  leadership  is  weakened  by 
self-indulgence  and  display.  The  true 
teacher  never  works  for  *'  pay  "  and  can- 


SOME  QUESTIONS  OF  EXPENSE     99 

not  be  bought.  Iligli  standards  and  ample 
fields  for  work  are  what  hold  such  men 
and  keep  them  in  a  school.  That  is  the 
**  life  "  upon  which  they  feed,  and,  unless 
that  is  provided,  they  will  go  elsewhere  or 
gradually  sink  to  the  dead  level  of  the 
drudge. 

At  the  same  time,  a  teacher  should  not 
be  pinched,  and  his  salary  should  be  suf- 
ficient to  keep  him  and  his  family,  if  he  has 
one,  free  from  the  petty  annoyances  of 
poverty,  with  a  chance  for  those  relaxa- 
tions which  are  absolutely  essential  to  one 
of  our  profession.  It  is  as  hopeless  to  keep 
a  good  man  on  a  poor  man's  salary  as  it  is 
to  expect  manly  self-restraint  and  unself- 
ishness among  the  boys  when  they  see  their 
masters  living  even  on  the  borders  of  lux- 
ury. As  to  the  expense  necessary  to  main= 
tain  a  certain  number  of  married  men  in  a 
school,  I  was  delighted  to  notice  that  Presi- 
dent Harper  shortly  before  his  death  de- 
clared that,  in  his  opinion,  married  pro- 
fessors were  better  than  single,  that  the 
added  expense  to  an  institution  of  educa- 
tion was  more  than  repaid  by  the  added 
usefulness  of  the  man.  If  in  a  university, 
doubly  so  in  a  school  where  the  humanizing 


100    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

effect  of  family  life,  of  women  and  chil- 
dren, is  of  untold  benefit.  Men  who  have 
lived  in  a  school  through  its  early  years 
of  bachelorhood  will  note  the  change  in 
tone  that  gradually  creeps  in  with  the 
arrival  of  another  bride  and  with  the 
appearance  of  little  ones  playing  about  the 
grounds. 

By  all  means  the  most  powerful  factor 
in  producing  habits  of  economy  among 
children  is  the  example  set  by  their  elders 
in  school  and  at  home.  But  in  addition  to 
example  it  requires  tact  and  perseverance 
to  train  boys  into  a  care  for  little  things, 
such  a  care  as  forbids  waste  at  the  table 
and  forbids  that  disregard  of  their  own 
and  others'  property  so  universal  in  a 
crowd  of  boys.  Everything  has  come  to 
the  child  without  effort,  and  there  is  a 
corresponding  resentment  against  any 
restraint  on  his  freedom  to  do  what  he 
will  with  his  own.  If,  moreover,  he  is  al- 
lowed to  do  what  he  will  with  his  own,  he 
does  what  he  wills  with  what  is  not  his  own, 
for  he  naturally  concludes  that  the  other 
fellow  "  doesn't  care."  The  school  is  his 
school  and  mother — the  boys  are  his 
friends  and  brothers ; ' '  they  don't  care  ' '  is 


SOME  QUESTIONS  OF  EXPENSE  101 

a  sentiment  not  wholly  untrue,  and  in  its 
proper  bearing  should  be  made  the  founda- 
tion for  teaching  each  boy  to  care  not  only 
for  his  fellows,  but  for  everything  that  per- 
tains to  the  health  and  happiness  of  the 
whole  household.  Boys  are  easily  brought 
to  acknowledge  the  inconvenience  to  others 
as  well  as  the  wrong  of  helping  themselves 
to  others'  pencils,  paper,  books,  grub, 
clothes,  or  playthings;  and,  by  a  proper 
organization  among  themselves,  can  be 
taught  to  put  down  all  that  kind  of  brig- 
andage which  school-masters  are  often  too 
prone  to  overlook. 

The  monitors,  and  others  organized  to 
regulate  more  particularly  the  undercur- 
rent of  the  social  life  in  a  school,  are  the 
ones  to  rouse  to  their  duty  in  this  regard. 
They  are  materially  helped  by  having  con- 
trol of  a  certain  amount  of  public  money 
to  go  toward  this  side  of  the  boys'  life. 
To  give  them  this  ally,  as  well  as  to  provide 
a  natural  outlet  for  the  cash  that  burns  in 
a  boy's  pocket,  and,  furthermore,  to  help 
in  putting  straight  the  whole  question  of 
the  loss  and  waste  of  property,  the  older 
boys  should  be  allowed  to  have  under  their 
supervision  the  cooperative  store.    While 


102    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

the  bills  for  breakages  in  the  school  are 
regularly  paid  from  the  treasury  of  this 
store,  there  soon  grows  the  habit  of  plac- 
ing the  responsibility  and  the  cost  upon  the 
right  one.  A  boy  soon  learns  then  to  pay 
for  his  own  carelessness.  For  the  same 
reason,  and  with  a  like  result,  those  whose 
property  has  been  lost  or  destroyed  by 
unauthorized  borrowers,  should  be  reim- 
bursed out  of  the  common  stock,  after  the 
case  has  been  passed  upon  by  a  committee 
of  the  older  boys.  Such  a  system  is  easily 
worked  under  the  auditing  of  some  careful 
man,  and  on  trial  has  given  very  satis- 
factory results.  Wliere  there  was  such  a 
plan  in  operation  the  janitor  was  in- 
structed to  gather  up  any  articles  left 
lying  about,  and  these  were  put  in  the  store 
for  redemption  at  a  nominal  price,  and 
periodically  there  was  some  fun  auction- 
ing off  the  unclaimed  property  to  the  high- 
est bidder.  Even  then,  at  the  end  of  term, 
there  were  always  a  number  of  valuable 
articles  suitable  for  giving  away  to  the 
needy.  Old  Bishop  Morris,  of  Oregon, 
once  commenting  upon  the  appearance  of 
such  a  junk-shop,  said,  **  Boys,  you  are  all 
right:  you  have  good  authority  for  gath- 


SOME  QUESTIONS  OF  EXPENSE  103 

ering  up  the  '  fragments  that  remain  that 
nothing  be  lost.'  " 

This  whole  question  of  education  in 
habits  of  care  as  to  meiim  and  tiium  is, 
however,  such  a  distasteful  one  that  in 
many  schools  it  is  practically  discarded. 
Hence  the  failure  in  honesty  of  so  many 
educated  men. 

In  a  good  school  there  should  be  no  leaks 
except  the  unavoidable,  just  enough  as  we 
say  of  a  boat, ''  to  keep  her  sweet."  Every 
salaried  man  and  woman  in  the  place,  from 
the  house-master  to  the  cook,  is  either  a  leak 
or  a  loyal  friend,  according  as  he  or  she  is 
made  to  feel  that  he  is  part  of  a  great  work 
going  on  for  the  betterment  of  men.  Good 
cooks  and  good  farmers  cannot  be  bought 
with  simple  coin  of  the  realm  any  more 
than  good  teachers.  The  kitchen  and  the 
farm  must  have  also  the  coin  of  life,  the 
love  and  the  care  of  a  person. 

**  Business  is  business." 

But  there  is  more  sentiment  in  business 
than  many  of  our  hard-headed  friends  will 
admit.  Witness  the  success  of  the  man 
who  is  in  the  business  of  politics.  He 
knows  the  money  in  the  kind  word  or  deed. 


VI 

THE   PLAYGROUND 

LL  work  and  no  play  makes  Jack 
a  dull  boy."  While  this  is  equally 
true  of  Gill,  her  play  comes  in  lighter 
ways,  and  the  strenuous  life  of  the  play- 
ground is  not  such  an  absolute  necessity 
for  her  as  it  is  for  the  average  boy.  The 
lack  of  experience  with  girls  on  the  play- 
ground, except  to  have  been  occasionally 
beaten  in  tennis  by  some  young  Amazon, 
constrains  us  to  drop  this  side  of  the  sub- 
ject, and  to  confine  ourselves  to  the  boy's 
play.  The  development  of  manly  qualities 
in  the  woman  does  not  seem  to  have  pro- 
duced a  corresponding  beauty  of  home  life. 
What  does  the  boy  say!  Ask  him  if  he 
likes  to  have  his  mother  roll  up  her  sleeves 
and  go  in  for  athletics.  We  say,  "  Ask 
the  boy,"  because  he  is  in  those  respects 
the  natural  animal  as  God  made  him,  un- 
spoiled by  theories  of  education  or  prac- 
tices of  society. 

104 


THE  PLAYGROUND  106 

But  when  it  comes  to  the  making  of  a 
man,  if  the  young  one  has  no  pride  in  his 
own  bodily  strength,  he  must  be  made  to 
have  it.  For  him,  it  is  the  beginning  of 
goodness,  the  beginning  of  wisdom.  The 
indolent  and  slack-twisted  boy,  if  it  can- 
not be  brought  about  in  any  other  way, 
should  be  made  to  exercise.  He  should  be 
taken  in  hand  by  some  one  who  knows  his 
business  and  "  set  up  "  every  day,  till  he 
can  stand  and  walk  and  run  and  jump 
alone,  and  till  he  wants  to  play. 

Enforced  i3lay  is  a  contradiction  in 
terms.  Therefore,  the  whole  atmosphere 
of  the  playground  should  be,  as  far  as  pos- 
sible, one  of  freedom,  the  boys  being  left, 
on  certain  well-defined  lines,  to  manage 
their  own  games.  Play  is  the  thing  to  be 
first  recognized.  If  there  is  not  a  place 
for  play  in  every  child's  life,  the  results 
will  be  disastrous;  and  if  the  play  is  not 
natural  and  healthy  play,  the  best  results 
will  not  be  attained.  If  the  playground 
is  turned  into  a  field  simply  for  exercise, 
so  exacting  that  it  ceases  to  be  play  but  be- 
comes work,  the  spontaneous  growth  of  the 
young  child  or  college  boy  is  spoiled.  He 
is  ''  coached  "  and  "  managed  "  and  even 


106    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

' '  tricked  ' '  out  of  his  rightful  heritage.  On 
the  other  hand,  if  the  playground  is  en- 
tirely neglected  by  the  elders  and  left  to 
the  rowdyism  that  is  sure  thus  to  develop, 
the  school  is  failing  to  utilize  one  of  its 
strongest  allies  in  the  cause  of  education. 
Do  not  let  us  say  allies,  but  rather  fac- 
tors; for,  whether  it  be  a  school  in  city 
or  country,  a  private  or  a  public  school, 
the  playground  should  be  a  part  of  the 
school.  It  certainly  is  an  encouraging  sign 
of  the  times  that  from  many  of  our  district 
schools  and  high  schools  come  invitations 
to  witness  play  in  the  field  as  well  as  play 
in  the  house.  Sports  and  concerts  and  lit- 
erary entertainments  are  all  becoming  rec- 
ognized factors  of  the  life  of  every  school. 
In  a  free  land  like  ours,  these  recreations 
tend  to  balance  one  another,  'so  that  there 
seems  little  cause  for  alarm  that  the  body 
will  receive  too  great  a  worship. 

However,  there  does  seem  cause  for 
alarm  in  the  undue  rivalry  that  is  being 
cultivated  among  our  young  people.  It 
is  the  same  old  story  as  in  the  home :  every- 
thing is  done  to  spoil  the  baby,  and  then 
comes  the  price  to  pay  to  the  wilful,  high- 
tempered,  spoiled  boy.     So  often  in  our 


THE  PLAYGROUND  107 

schools  so  mucli  is  clone  to  arouse  rivalry 
and  the  desire  to  win  that  it  becomes 
part  of  the  nature  of  the  American  boy 
to  win  even  by  doubtful  means.  What 
can  we  expect  in  finance  and  social  rivalry 
of  those  who  have  imbibed  for  so  many 
years  the  spirit  that  now  commonly  per- 
vades the  playgrounds  of  our  schools  and 
colleges?  The  thoughtful  man  must  think 
of  many  things  as  he  sits,  one  among  thirty 
thousand,  in  Harvard's  Stadium  to  watch 
an  athletic  contest  between  Harvard  and 
Yale.  Among  all  his  questions  and  con- 
clusions, one  question  will  not  be  stilled, 
''  What  effect  has  all  this  adulation  upon 
the  character  of  these  young  gladiators?  '* 
and  one  conclusion  is  quite  settled :  namely, 
that  this  is  not  a  playground. 

The  good  old  games  that  grew  into  shape 
under  the  demands  of  natural,  healthy 
play,  have  had  violent  hands  laid  on  them 
by  committees  of  men  who  have  got 
through  the  days  of  play  and  whose 
minds  are  set  on  business.  The  problem 
is  to  turn  the  game  into  a  spectacular  per- 
formance which  brings  in  much  receipts 
for  gate  money  and  many  dollars  to  the 
purveyors  of  defensive  armor.  A  boy  must 


108    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

now  ask  his  motlier  if  lie  may  play ;  he  must 
think  twice  himself,  and  must  dress  him- 
self many  times  before  he  plays;  and  his 
father  and  his  schoolmaster!  Why,  they 
are  out  of  it  altogether. 

Now  all  this  nonsense  on  the  playground 
has  arisen  from  the  fact  that  the  school 
has  not  done  its  duty;  it  has  not  duly  con- 
sidered its  responsibility  for  the  play  of 
the  child,  and  has  allowed  those  interested 
in  business  and  glory  to  order  the  play- 
ground. Graduates  ought  to  leave  the 
games  alone,  and  no  managers  or  other 
professionals  ought  to  be  tolerated.  Of 
course  such  a  view  is  impractical  as 
long  as  the  present  system  of  intercol- 
legiate and  interscholastic  sport  is  in 
vogue. 

A  wise  school  will  be  the  absolute  arbiter 
of  the  games  to  be  played,  and  will  see  to 
it  that  its  boys  play,  and  not  solely  or 
principally  train  a  team  to  down  some 
other  team.  Men  at  college  will  play 
what  they  have  learned  at  school.  Now 
the  sequence  is  reversed.  Boys  at  school 
try  to  play  what  graduates  arrange  for 
college  men  to  perform.  Owing  to  many 
causes,  however,  the  result  is  not  wholly 


THE  PLAYGROUND  109 

bad;  as  objects  of  betting,  athletic  contests 
certainly  are  an  improvement  on  cards  and 
dice;  as  objects  of  interest  to  the  great 
body  of  men  they  are  an  undoubted  im- 
provement on  college  rows  and  silly 
pranks;  but  as  factors  in  education,  they 
are  not  what  they  might  be. 

As  an  American  boy  who  entered  enthu- 
siastically into  all  games,  and  as  a  school- 
master who  is  still  playing  with  boys,  my 
experience  is  that  a  spirit  of  undue  rivalry, 
whether  used  to  create  loyalty  for  school 
or  simply  to  cultivate  in  the  individual  the 
desire  to  win,  is  far  too  prevalent.  It 
has  not  only  subverted  the  whole  idea  of 
play,  but  it  has  tended  to  breed  in  our 
stock  an  inordinate  and  impatient  desire 
for  immediate  success.  The  expression 
*'  to  win  "  has  lost  its  proper  significance, 
and  has  degenerated  into  the  vulgar  con- 
ception of  ' '  getting  the  best  of  ' '  your  fel- 
low. The  boy  is  in  the  way  of  being 
trained  into  an  utterly  false  standard  of 
life.  His  eye  is  fixed  on  all  the  little  trump- 
ery prizes  by  the  way;  he  is  ever  racing 
with  somebody;  he  is  worn  out  with  the 
competition,  and  loses  sight  of  the  great 
prize:  to  find  that  place  among  his  fel- 


110    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

lows  which  is  his,  and  which  he  can  fill 
better  than  any  other  man.  And  every 
man  knows,  if  he  knows  anything,  that  this 
is  found  only  by  that  opposite  spirit  of 
self-surrender  which  grows  in  the  long 
days  and  nights  of  work  and  play  without 
any  cups,  even  of  pewter.  But  what  joy 
in  the  winning  of  that  prize!  as  we  learn 
to  lose  sight  of  ourselves  and  our  little 
gains  and  losses,  as  we  find  ourselves  fit- 
ting into,  and  working  with,  a  higher  power 
expressed  in  all  nature  and  in  our  fellow 
men.  This  happiness  is  a  natural  happi- 
ness that  starts  in  the  nursery  for  the  child 
brought  up  in  faith;  but  it  is  marred  be- 
yond recognition  in  the  rivalries  of  the 
school.  By  a  system  of  rivalry  in  the  class- 
room and  on  the  playground  we  deliber- 
ately educate  our  children  into  ways  of 
individualism  that  require  a  lifetime  of 
pain  and  failure  to  eradicate.  We  shall 
have  more  to  say  on  this  head  when  we 
treat  of  the  classroom  and  religion  in 
school.  Too  much  stress,  however,  cannot 
be  laid  upon  the  influence  of  play  on  char- 
acter. It  is  when  we  have  lost  ourselves, 
when  effort  becomes  spontaneous,  that  life 
leaps  within  us. 


THE  PLAYGROUND  111 

It  seems  very  plain  to  us,  therefore,  that 
the  first  step  in  purifying  our  children's 
play  is  to  put  in  its  proper  place  this  spirit 
of  rivalry,  to  bridle  it  and  guide  it  on  the 
road  to  good  fellowship  and  play  for  play's 
sake.  The  root  of  the  trouble  seems  to  be 
in  the  custom  of  intercollegiate  and  inter- 
scholastic  athletics.  For  a  school  to  de- 
pend on  rivalry  with  other  schools  in  order 
to  develop  esprit  de  corps  is  a  sad  con- 
fession of  weakness.  It  is  true,  such 
rivalry  does  arouse  a  kind  of  loyalty  which 
is  a  very  convenient  handle  for  the  master 
to  use  for  higher  purposes.  But  it  is  a 
tonic  that  is  taken  at  the  expense  of  true 
vitality.  Such  a  loyalty  is  largely  super- 
ficial and  more  of  the  shouting  quality  than 
that  which  depends  on  the  true  worth  of 
the  school  and  runs  more  quietly  and  more 
deeply. 

A  natural  and  happy  rivalry  is  always 
manifest,  and  is  no  doubt  a  principal  fac- 
tor on  the  playground.  But  the  ground 
should  depend  on  its  own  attractions  to 
draw  out  the  children,  not  on  any  un- 
healthy or  spectacular  excitement ;  and  the 
school  should  appreciate  the  necessity  of 
enhancing  this  attractiveness  in  every  le- 


112    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

gitimate  way.  We  shall  see  growing  up 
in  our  land  a  better  and  finer  race  of  men 
and  women,  when  every  school  has  an 
ample  and  attractive  playground.  All 
children  will  play  at  something,  and  it 
needs  only  the  space  and  appliances  and  a 
little  steering  on  the  part  of  the  elders 
to  turn  the  play  into  its  best  channels.  The 
man  that  goes  on  to  the  playground  with 
his  boys  will  not  only  have  many  chances 
to  do  and  say  the  right  thing,  but  he  will 
find  the  snarls  of  his  own  work  dropping 
out  by  themselves.  Let  him  play  sim- 
ply as  a  fellow  with  no  authority,  and  he 
will  experience  the  sweetness  of  that  fel- 
lowship where  years  are  forgotten  and 
time  is  no  more. 

While  every  chance  ought  to  be  given  for 
the  individual  to  choose  congenial  recrea- 
tion, such  as  wandering  in  the  fields  and 
woods  or  playing  games  of  less  violence, 
the  games  themselves  should  be  so  organ- 
ized as  to  discountenance  spectators,  and 
to  gather  in  all  possible  players,  whether 
young  or  old.  The  prominent  games 
should  be  those  that  call  for  team  work  and 
give  exercise  to  the  moral  qualities  of  obe- 
dience,  unselfishness,    good    temper,    and 


THE  PLAYGROUND  113 

patient  effort,  as  well  as  the  popular  ones 
of  pluck  and  dasli. 

The  playgrounds  of  England  have  long 
stood  as  the  training  grounds  of  her  great 
men ;  men  not  only  of  profound  ability,  but 
men  who  have  ever  stood  ready  to  sacrifice 
themselves,  even  in  the  remote  corners  of 
the  earth,  for  the  good  of  their  fellows, — 
such  sacrifice  learned,  as  they  said,  on  the 
playing  fields  of  Eton.  Let  any  one  to-day 
spend  a  quiet  week  at  one  of  their  great 
schools,  or  at  either  of  the  universities,  or 
indeed  among  the  thousands  of  artisans 
playing  on  the  commons  or  in  the  parks, 
and  he  will  at  once  recognize  a  spirit  quite 
different  from  our  own ;  and  the  diif erence 
not  indeed  to  our  advantage.  There  is  still 
to  be  found  the  ''  friendly  game  "  which, 
some  of  us  remember,  was  the  form  of 
words  used  in  the  old-fashioned  challenge. 
Interscholastic  sport  is  the  exception  and 
in  no  case  the  raison  d'etre.  Play  for 
play's  sake  is  the  rule.  And  does  this 
make  a  man  easy  to  beat!  It  has  not  been 
our  experience.  It  is  all  give  and  take 
in  his  own  ''  tight  little  Island,"  but  let  an 
outsider  dare  to  win  from  Johnny  and  he 
will  not  have  a  comfortable  time.    There 


114    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

his  patriotism  is  stirred,  and  liis  long  pres- 
tige in  sport  has  made  the  Englishman  a 
poor  loser.  But  they  certainly  can  teach 
us  how  to  play  among  themselves. 

Cricket  stands  alone  as  a  team  game 
which  refuses  to  be  Americanized;  and 
alone  as  a  team  game  open  to  young  and 
old  with  no  favor.  It  is  very  much  to  our 
loss  that  it  is  not  our  principal  school 
game,  as  it  is  in  England.  Ask  almost  any 
man  who  has  had  a  thorough  course  of 
cricket,  and  he  will  tell  you  that,  for  the 
manly  qualities  that  stand  through  life,  he 
owes  more  to  cricket  than  to  any  one  game 
or  to  any  one  study.  While  its  merits  be- 
come thoroughly  appreciated  only  by  the 
trained  cricketer,  any  observer  of  the  game 
at  a  school  may  readily  understand  its  ad- 
vantages. In  the  first  place,  it  is  not  spec- 
tacular, and  so  boys  are  not  tempted  to  sit 
around  and  become  mere  rooters;  it  is, 
therefore,  not  calculated  to  rouse  mere 
noise  and  antagonisms  in  the  school.  On 
the  contrary,  the  game  has  rather  a  quiet- 
ing influence  on  turbulent  spirits,  and 
always  a  steadying  effect  on  the  indi- 
vidual. What  is  more,  he  does  not  soon 
grow  tired  of  it,  but,  as  the  season  ad- 


THE  PLAYGROUND  115 

vances,  grows  more  and  more  interested: 
there  is  so  much  for  the  individual  to  learn 
in  the  mere  batting  and  bowling  that  the 
appetite  is  continually  being  whetted. 
While  any  number,  from  two  up,  can  play 
iendless  single  wicket  matches  where  the 
skill  of  the  individual  is  the  principal  fac- 
tor, the  regular  game  offers  a  wide  field  for 
generalship  and  team  play.  And  not  the 
least  that  can  be  said  in  its  favor  as  a 
school  game  is  the  great  number  of  boys 
that  can  get  general  practice,  or  play  single 
wicket  matches  on  one  field.  I  have  fre- 
quently counted  one  hundred  and  fifty  boys 
all  playing  on  a  field  of  four  or  five  acres. 
And  there  is  no  game  in  which  the  simple 
hour  of  practice  is  so  engrossing. 

This  game  embodies  the  best  instincts  of 
our  race,  and  comes  nearer  to  the  game 
of  life  than  any  field  sport.  Mere  rivalry 
has  little  to  do  with  its  interest,  and  there 
is  the  same  balance  of  individual  prowess, 
team  play,  and  chance  that  characterizes 
the  every-day  life  of  every  man.  In  no 
game  is  there  a  like  reward  for  mere  pa- 
tient effort.  While  strength  and  quickness 
of  body  have  an  ample  field,  still  the  weak 
and  awkward  boy  may  surpass  the  athlete, 


116    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

because  of  moral  qualities  which  the  other 
lacks.  However,  it  is  hardly  fair  to  the 
public  to  launch  a  school  cricketer  into  the 
arena  of  the  American  playground,  where 
the  art  of  ground-making  is  in  its  infancy. 
To  enjoy  cricket  there  must  be  good  turf, 
and  for  a  youngster  to  enjoy  cricket  he 
must  be  taken  in  hand  early;  for  some 
years,  also,  he  will  need  the  coaching  of  a 
trained  player.  Like  everything  else  that 
claims  a  high  place  in  its  order,  it  requires 
cultivation  for  appreciation. 

As  a  mere  exercise,  of  course,  rowing 
cannot  be  surpassed;  but  rowing  without 
racing  is  not  much  sport  to  the  boy,  and  it 
is  very  doubtful  how  far  races  tend  to 
physical  development.  It  is  certain,  more- 
over, that  for  most  men  rowing  is  out  of 
the  question;  and  the  boy  that  has  rowed 
assiduously  will  find  in  later  life  his  mus- 
cles incapable  of  excelling  in  the  lighter 
work  of  the  playground  in  which  he  may 
wish  to  indulge  between  business  hours. 

In  closing  this  chapter,  let  me  again 
draw  attention  to  my  theme:  namely,  (1) 
that  the  school  playground  should  depend 
for  its  attractiveness,  not  on  rivalry,  but 
on  the  beauty  and  practical  character  of 


THE  PLAYGROUND  117 

the  ground,  both  for  summer  and  winter 
sports ;  (2)  that  the  games  under  the  school 
supervision  should  be  such  as,  in  their  sea- 
son, to  give  every  kind  of  a  boy  a  chance 
for  healthy,  invigorating  play  that  goes  to 
cultivate  in  him  the  best  qualities  of  fine 
manliness. 


vn 

DISCIPLINE 

DISCIPLINE,  we  may  define,  as  that 
which  comes  to  us  in  life  for  pur- 
poses of  correction. 

To  the  child  untrained  at  home,  school 
seems  to  be  a  place  mostly  devoted  to  his 
correction.  To  avoid  disciplin^fcomes  to 
be  one  of  the  chief  aims  of  hi^^istence. 
He  is  apt  to  look  upon  his  masters,  in  a 
mild  way,  as  his  natural  enemies.  Perhaps 
he  is  a  lover  of  music ;  yet  his  life  is  made 
wretched  by  the  patient  man  at  his  elbow, 
who  seeks  to  correct  his  false  notes,  even  to 
breaking  the  time  and  tune  of  his  perform- 
ance. This  must  be  done,  however,  if  he  is 
ever  to  realize  the  harmony,  though  the 
raps  on  his  knuckles  may  fill  his  hour  with 
nothing  but  the  contemplations  of  his 
faults.  The  man,  the  man  at  his  elbow, 
he  alone  has  it  in  his  power  to  bring  music 
out  of  it  all,  to  recall  the  memory  of  the 

118 


DISCIPLINE  119 

lost  harmony,  and  to  rekindle  the  spark  of 
genius  by  his  own  inspiring  touch  of  the 
keys. 

Therefore,  in  defining  the  nature  of  dis- 
cipline, let  us  go  beyond  the  mere  correc- 
tion of  a  fault,  and  seek  for  a  higher 
object:  namely,  correction  indeed,  but 
correction  in  order  to  attain  the  fuller 
expression  of  the  harmony  of  life. 
And  when  it  comes  to  methods,  we  shall 
never  get  far  from  the  personality  of  the 
teacher. 

The  harmony  of  life !  All  the  notes  are 
there  in  the  child  as  they  are  in  the  instru- 
ment ;  the  part  that  education  has  to  play 
is  to  bring  out  the  best  chords  that  can 
be  made  from  these  beautiful,  though 
silent,  notes.  All  the  natural  powers  of 
the  child  are  good;  it  is  their  abuse  that 
leads  to  what  we  call  badness.  It  is  not  as 
if  there  was  something  innately  bad  that 
had  to  be  killed;  it  is  that  the  child  is  to 
be  taught,  even  by  pain,  the  true  develop- 
ment of  all  its  powers.  This,  then,  is  the 
special  work  of  discipline,  the  correction 
of  faults  in  such  a  way  as  to  bring  out 
all  the  true  qualities  of  the  child  that  it 
may  sound,  each  in  its  true  place,  those 


120    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

clear  notes  that  produce  a  life  of  har- 
mony. 

The  school  is  the  larger  home  and  the 
smaller  world,  and  it  must  combine  the 
elements  of  both.  While,  on  the  one  hand, 
the  personal  factor  is  not  so  predominant 
as  in  the  home  and  more  is  left  to  what 
may  be  called  the  self-discipline  of  the 
world,  on  the  other  hand,  the  teacher  takes 
the  place  of  the  parent  in  the  larger  home 
of  the  school. 

Some  remarks  made  by  B.  W.  Maturin 
in  *^  Self-knowledge  and  Self-discipline  " 
are  well  worth  quoting  in  this  connection: 
"  We  cannot  imagine  that  .  .  .  the  Cre- 
ator created  and  placed  in  man  what  was 
evil.  Analyze  the  soul  of  the  greatest 
sinner  and  the  greatest  saint  and  you  will 
not  find  in  the  sinner  any  single  element 
that  is  not  in  the  saint.  Compare  the  soul 
of  the  Magdalene  or  of  St.  Augustine  be- 
fore and  after  their  conversion.  There 
was  nothing  lacking  in  either  after  their 
conversion  that  was  there  before.  As 
saints  they  were  not  weakened  or  emascu- 
lated. Who  would  have  cared  to  read  their 
history  if  they  had  not  been  converted? 
Who,  on  reading  their  history,  does  not 


DISCIPLINE  121 

feel  that  their  lives  after  their  conversion 
were  the  lives  of  those  who  had  '  come  to 
themselves,'  that  they  were  then  their  real 
selves,  that  somehow  they  got  the  power  of 
self-expression  in  the  fullest  and  highest 
sense?  They  lost  nothing,  destroyed  noth- 
ing, but  were  in  full  possession  of  all  their 
powers.  There  was  much  in  the  Magda- 
lene which  she  had  never  used,  perhaps 
never  dreamed  of,  till  she  came  to  our 
Lord ;  He  revealed  to  her  the  secret  of  true 
self -development,  which  is  another  word 
for  sanctity ;  and  she  found  under  his  guid- 
ance that  everything  in  her  had  henceforth 
to  be  used,  and  used  in  a  fuller  and  richer 
way  than  she  had  ever  imagined  before. 
It  was  in  no  narrow  school  of  self-limita- 
tion, in  no  morbid  school  of  false  asceti- 
cism, that  this  poor  sinner  was  educated  in 
the  principles  of  sanctity,  but  in  the  large 
and  merciful  school  of  Him  who  has  been 
ever  since  the  hope  of  the  hopeless,  the 
friend  of  publicans  and  sinners,  who  knows 
full  well  that  what  men  need  is  not  to  crush 
and  kill  their  powers,  but  to  find  their  true 
use  and  to  use  them;  that  holiness  is  not 
the  emptying  of  life,  but  the  filling;  that 
despair  has  wrapped  its  dark  cloud  round 


122    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

many  a  soul  because  it  found  itself  in  pos- 
session of  powers  that  it  abused  and  could 
not  destroy  and  did  not  know  how  to  use, 
and  who  taught  them  the  great  and  inspir- 
ing doctrine,  *  I  am  not  come  to  destroy, 
but  to  fulfil.'  .  .  .  Mortification,  therefore, 
is  not  an  end  in  itself,  it  is  but  a  means 
to  an  end,  and  the  end  is  the  truest  and 
fullest  use  of  everything  that  we  have. 
'  'Tis  life,  not  death,  for  which  we  pant  ' 
— the  death  is  a  death  unto  sin  as  the 
means  of  entering  into  a  larger  life  unto 
righteousness.  ...  *  For  the  joy  that  is 
set  before  us  we  endure  the  cross  ' — we  do 
not  endure  it  merely  for  its  own  sake,  but 
for  what  lies  beyond  it.  And  we  bear  those 
acts  of  self-denial  and  self-restraint  be- 
cause we  feel  and  know  full  well  that 
through  such  acts  alone  can  we  regain  the 
mastery  over  all  our  misused  powers  and 
learn  to  use  them  with  a  vigor  and  joy  such 
as  we  have  never  known  before." 

Thus  writes  the  priest,  and  thus  sings 
the  poet : 

**  I  held  it  truth  with  him  who  sings 
To  one  clear  harp  in  divers  tones 
That  men  may  rise  on  stepping  stones 
Of  their  dead  selves  to  higher  things. 


DISCIPLINE  123 

**  But  who  shall  so  forecast  the  years 
And  find  in  loss  a  gain  to  match? 
Or  reach  a  hand  thro'  time  to  catch 
The  far-off  interest  of  tears? 

*'  Let  love  clasp  both,  lest  both  be  drowned." 

Ah!  there  again  is  the  magic  wand  that 
alone  can  ''  forecast  the  years  and  find  in 
loss  a  gain  to  match."  As  we  teachers  look 
into  the  hearts  of  the  children  committed 
to  us,  may  we  see  there  the  image  of  per- 
fection striving  to  come  to  realization,  and 
may  we  love  it  as  part  of  the  inspiration 
of  our  own  lives!  Then  the  iron  tool  of 
discipline  will  be  held  with  steady  hand, 
and,  bit  by  bit,  we  shall  see  the  form  grow- 
ing from  the  rough  block  to  the  perfection 
of  true  manhood.  This  tool  must  hurt,  at 
times  severely,  but  we  are  assured  that  we 
are  working  on  the  x^ian  of  the  Creator 
and  Saviour  and  Sanctifier  of  men.  He 
chastens  all  whom  He  loves.  The  attempt 
to  bring  up  children  without  chastisement 
is  not  only  unchristian  and  unwise,  in  the 
light  of  the  flabby  results  which  we  see 
about  us,  but  it  is  cruel  to  the  child;  it  is 
deferring  what  is  sure  to  come,  in  some 
form  or  another,  when  the  nature  is  less 
pliable  and  requires  a  discipline  more  se- 


124    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

vere.  A  few  sharp  pains  to  tlie  child  save 
hours  and  perhaps  years  of  suffering.  The 
longest  lives  are  hardly  long  enough  for 
any  of  us  to  learn  completely  the  wisdom 
of  submission,  which  is  the  art  of  guiding 
our  wills  into  the  channels  of  true  life. 
The  child  that  learns  honor  and  obedience 
to  father  and  mother  gets  such  a  start  as 
to  have  almost  the  monopoly  of  the  best 
that  this  world  can  give,  the  long  life :  that 
is,  the  large  and  full  life  that  comes  only 
to  him  that  has  learned  the  lesson  of  order. 
It  is  in  this  sense  that  the  meek  inherit  the 
earth;  in  direct  ratio  to  genuine  humility 
is  a  man's  power  to  absorb  all  the  joy  and 
beauty  of  life. 

What  a  solemn  duty,  then,  awaits  the 
man  who  takes  upon  himself  the  dealing 
out  of  God's  discipline  to  the  young  in 
order  to  bring  each  child  to  the  fulness  of 
his  life,  as  we  say,  to  his  better  self! 
And  what  a  solemn  duty  to  organize  in  a 
school  a  system  of  discipline  that  tends 
to  bring  about  this  result!  There  are  so 
many  different  selves  that  the  mere  men- 
tion of  the  word  system  seems  out  of 
place.  There  is,  in  wholesale  education, 
a  constant  danger  of  levelling  all  up  or 


DISCIPLINE  125 

down  to  a  common  standard,  and  this  dan- 
ger is  at  its  height  when  we  are  deal- 
ing so  directly  with  the  habits  and  mo- 
tives of  the  young,  as  we  are  in  the  case 
of  discipline.  However,  we  cannot  escape 
a  certain  amount  of  machinery  in  the 
school.  A  teacher  requires  it  to  steady  him 
and  to  counteract  his  own  mistakes  in  judg- 
ment and  temper.  But,  while  a  teacher  has 
a  right  to  expect  this  help,  he  has  no  right 
to  throw  his  own  personal  responsibility 
upon  a  machine.  Therefore,  any  school 
system  of  discipline  should  tend  to  the 
cultivation  of  personal  responsibility  on 
both  sides.  It  is  only  in  this  way  that,  in 
the  first  place,  true  standards  of  right  and 
wrong  are  constantly  kept  before  the  child, 
and  that,  in  the  second  place,  the  punish- 
ment results  in  bringing  him  to  his  better 
self.  Let  us  not  forget  that  in  bringing  a 
child  to  the  full  appreciation  and  use  of 
his  own  powers,  the  first  duty  of  the  school 
is  to  set  and  maintain  the  highest  stand- 
ards of  life;  and,  therefore,  an  all-impor- 
tant part  of  discipline  is  the  training  of  the 
conscience  to  recognition  and  appreciation 
of  these  standards.  Order  and  good  feel- 
ing bought  at  the  price  of  poor  manners 


126    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

and  the  lowering  of  the  boy's  ideas  of  right 
and  wrong,  are  too  dear.  Every  feature  of  a 
system  of  discipline  should  tend  to  correct 
every  failure  from  true  righteousness.  No 
merely  formal  standards,  or  merely  formal 
corrections  reach  the  hearts  of  children: 
both  must  have  expression  in  their  elders 
in  order  to  be  effective;  here  example  is 
not  only  better  than  precept,  but  it  is 
absolutely  indispensable.  To  set  up  stand- 
ards of  truth,  unselfishness,  justice,  and 
purity  without  the  living  and  working 
leaders  at  hand  is  the  surest  way  to  de- 
stroy. By  any  impersonal  or  automatic 
system  of  discipline  the  conscience  of  the 
child  is  trained  to  admit  the  legality  of 
wrong,  so  long  as  the  legal  penalty  is  paid ; 
the  whole  thing  becomes  a  sort  of  a  game; 
and  automatic  disorder,  and  worse,  become 
the  playfellows  of  automatic  discipline;  as 
Edward  Thring  used  to  say,  ''  A  regula- 
tion punishment  soon  creates  a  regulation 
offence."  What  is  worse,  in  the  excite- 
ment of  the  game,  habits  of  evasion  and 
self-excuse  are  formed  to  the  injury  of 
truth  and  manliness.  It  will  always  be  one 
of  the  incomprehensible  facts  presented  to 
a  teacher,  working  in  such  a  system,  that 


DISCIPLINE  127 

otherwise  fine  and  manly  boys  seem  to 
lose  all  sense  of  truth  and  good  breeding 
when  they  can  clothe  themselves  with  the 
customary  garments  of  the  systematic 
schoolboy  honor  arising  from  the  system- 
atic working  of  school  discipline.  No, 
indeed !  Our  plan  should  be  anything  but 
automatic ;  it  should  be  as  flexible  and  hu- 
man as  the  heart  of  man. 

Punishment?  The  severest  punishment 
a  boy  can  experience  is  the  thought  that  he 
has  done  wrong,  and  that  there  is  no  ex- 
piation for  him  except  in  the  manly  en- 
deavor to  do  better.  The  experienced 
teacher  has  learned  how  to  produce  that 
thought  without  recourse  to  any  means 
but  his  own  personality.  He  rarely  falls 
back  upon  authority.  He  takes  his  pro- 
fession as  seriously  as  does  the  doctor  who 
studies  every  individual  case  in  all  its  bear- 
ings in  order  to  apply  the  medicine  that 
will  give  the  man  every  chance  for  health 
and  happiness.  A  mere  reference  to  au- 
thority is  at  once  a  display  of  personal 
weakness  or  ignorance;  such  reference 
should  be  used  only  as  a  last  resort,  and 
as  standing  behind  or  as  a  part  of  the  man 
himself.     That  authority  no  doubt  is  in- 


128    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

dispensable.  No  man  can  safely  and  wisely 
Tise  his  own  personality  unless  he  knows 
that  right  is  going  to  prevail,  and  stands, 
so  to  speak,  at  his  elbow  in  plain  sight  of 
all  his  charges  and  embodied  in  the  whole 
system  of  the  school.  And  no  school  can 
do  its  duty  without  a  definite  and  final  ap- 
peal as  the  spirit  of  the  whole  body.  And 
what  is  this  appeal!  Let  us  say  again,  and 
most  distinctly,  never  any  automatic  pun- 
ishment; but  somewhere  in  the  institution 
a  man  whose  word  is  final.  Boys  who  are 
the  ' '  pickles  "  of  a  school  must  come  very 
soon  to  a  wall  of  practical  prohibition,  and 
no  such  wall  can  be  effectual  that  is  not 
personified  in  the  firm  will  of  a  man.  Boys 
with  a  better  earlier  training  or  naturally 
more  docile  are  in  their  own  way  just  as 
much  in  need  of  a  personal  leader.  To 
this  one  alone  belongs  the  power  of  bring- 
ing all  the  forces  of  the  school  to  bear  upon 
the  child.  These  forces,  the  final  one  of 
which  is  expulsion,  will  be  differently 
worked  by  different  men.  An  automatic 
system  of  merits  and  demerits,  ending  on 
one  side  with  entrance  into  college  and  on 
the  other  with  expulsion  from  school,  is 
not  worthy  of  consideration  by  any  man 


DISCIPLINE  129 

who  calls  himself  a  teacher;  yet  a  system 
of  merits  and  demerits  can  be  made  a  great 
heliD  as  a  practical  channel  for  the  exer- 
cise of  his  power  and  personality. 

One  who  knew  from  long  experience  the 
necessity  for  the  quick  punishment  of  a 
fault  as  well  as  the  necessity  for  always 
keeping  plainly  before  the  child  the  stand- 
ard of  right  and  wrong,  and  one  who  knew 
the  practical  difficulties  in  the  way  of  pun- 
ishments at  schools,  writes : 

'*  Punishments  which  exact  much  addi- 
tional work  from  the  master  are  as  impos- 
sible in  a  good  school  as  punishments 
which  exact  much  additional  labor  from 
the  boy.  The  true  solution  of  the  great 
difficulty  appears  to  lie  finally  in  a  school 
having  many  privileges,  as  long  as  work 
and  behavior  are  good.  Every  privilege  is 
a  possible  punishment,  as  it  can  be  taken 
away.  This  is  sometimes  a  severe  inflic- 
tion." However,  in  some  cases,  this  "  de- 
privation often  lacks  the  one  chief  need 
in  punishing:  it  is  not  quick  enough. 

''  Quickness  and  certainty  soon  reduce 
the  number  of  faults.  Uncertainty  and  de- 
lay breed  culprits.  But  something  can  be 
done.     If  bad  marks  carry  punishment. 


130    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

good  marks  should  cancel  it.  .  .  .  Not 
what  the  fault  deserves,  but  what  will  work 
best,  is  the  teacher's  problem.  Many  times 
a  wise  forgiveness  has  cured  where  punish- 
ment would  have  made  worse.  The  over- 
matched man  and  the  fool  have  their  pun- 
ishments cut  and  dried,  of  the  regulation 
pattern,  and  apply  the  official  stamp  with- 
out regard  to  anything  but  the  actual  fault. 
...  A  dead  level  of  punishment  is  a  griev- 
ous mistake.  It  leads  boys  to  think  that, 
however  much  they  try,  there  is  no  escape, 
and  accordingly  they  lose  heart,  and  cease 
to  try.  Glimmerings  of  better  things 
should  be  taken  advantage  of,  and  when 
honest  praise  can  be  awarded  the  battle  is 
half  won." 

Whatever  the  system,  it  should  be,  as  far 
as  possible,  alive;  while  correcting  each 
fault  with  patience  by  some  timely  device, 
at  the  same  time  always  meeting  half-way 
every  effort  on  the  boy's  part.  "While  per- 
sonal vigilance  is  absolutely  necessary,  tact 
in  knowing  just  when  to  notice  a  fault  is 
absolutely  necessary  in  order  to  make  the 
high  standard  held  up  by  the  system  a 
standard  to  win  adherents.  The  ordinary, 
every-day  boy  is  to  be  trained  to  high 


DISCIPLINE  131 

ideals  of  work  and  conduct,  and  the  ex- 
ceptional boy  is  not  to  be  worried  out  of 
those  peculiarities  which,  properly  di- 
rected, become  the  source  of  future  power. 
This  exceptional  boy  is  often  the  one  most 
worth  educating.  Any  place  of  education 
working  a  system  that  excludes  the  duf- 
fer or  the  pickle,  or  even  the  eccen- 
tric, can  hardly  be  said  to  come  up  to 
the  ideals  of  a  Christian  school.  The 
centuries,  if  they  have  proved  anything, 
have  proved  the  unfairness  as  well  as  the 
foolishness  of  the  world's  ready  esti- 
mate of  what  constitutes  power  in  life. 
The  slow  and  practical  James,  the  trouble- 
some and  even  false  and  cowardly  Peter, 
may  have  forces  within  them  which  any. 
school  should  be  proud  to  educate,  though 
it  be  with  pain  and  travail.  The  growth  of 
mental  and  moral  vigor  is  as  illusive  and 
unsteady  as  the  growth  of  the  boy's  body 
— more  so ;  it  goes  by  fits  and  starts :  that 
is,  it  seems  to  do  so,  though  we  get  to 
know,  after  a  time,  that  all  the  while  in  the 
dormant  spirit  are  gathering  forces  of 
amazing  power  waiting  only  for  some  sig- 
nal gun. 

Therefore,  while  we  must  have  a  system, 


132    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

let  us  take  care  that  it  is  not  one  tliat 
tends  to  neglect  or  expel  the  apparently 
weak  or  troublesome,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
one  that  patiently  builds  up  the  weak,  and 
one  that  turns  the  active  spirit  to  better 
things  than  teasing  and  mischief;  in  other 
words,  a  system  that  arouses  the  personal 
interest  of  every  teacher  for  every  child, 
and  one  that  centres  responsibility  on  re- 
sponsible men,  narrowing  gradually  to  the 
one  father  of  the  family ;  a  system  that  dis- 
courages appeals  to  authority — a  system, 
however,  that  has  the  authority  at  hand; 
a  system  in  which  regulation  punishments 
are  reduced  to  a  minimum — a  system  in 
which  these  punishments  are  wisely  and 
justly  and  quickly  administered  in  such  a 
way  as  to  build  up  a  child  and  strengthen 
its  good  resolves,  rather  than  to  brow- 
beat its  half-formed  bad  ones  into  final 
adoption. 

Let  us  sketch  the  practical  details  in  such 
a  system. 

As  a  preliminary  to  such  a  sketch,  and 
also  that  we  may  at  no  time  lose  sight  of 
our  theme,  I  shall  quote  again  from 
Thring's  book,  "  The  Theory  and  Practice 
of    Teaching  " :    "  What    you    command, 


DISCIPLINE  133 

obey  yourself  most.  Perhaps  there  is  no 
more  unsuspected  source  of  misdeeds  than 
the  unconscious  way  in  which  many  mas- 
ters break  small  laws,  and  disregard  small 
observances.  How  often  unpunctuality  is 
fostered  by  a  want  of  precision  in  the  at- 
tendance of  a  master.  Or  his  absence  on 
some  school  occasion  suggests  that  such 
public  occasions  are  not  worth  coming  to 
for  their  own  sake,  but  are  things  to  escape 
from  if  possible. 

' '  The  boys  extend  the  principle  to  things 
they  wish  to  escape  from ;  and  no  one  sus- 
pects, least  of  all  the  delinquent  master, 
that  the  hea\y  case  of  shirking  which  is 
tormenting  him  in  his  class  is  only  an  hum- 
ble but  too  successful  copy  of  himself." 

If  a  man  appreciates  the  force  of  his 
own  example,  if,  in  other  words,  he  is  fit 
to  be  a  teacher,  the  most  important  feature 
in  a  system  of  discipline  should  be  the  en- 
couragement it  gives  a  man  to  handle  his 
own  children  without  falling  back  upon 
authority.  The  more  swing  the  teacher  is 
allowed,  the  better  is  he  able  to  do  his 
own  work.  All  men  are  bound  to  differ  in 
minor  methods,  and  this  fact  should  be 
candidly  recognized  so  long  as  the  results 


134    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

are  in  harmony  witli  the  ideals  and  gen- 
eral plan  of  the  scheme.  The  main  lines, 
however,  on  which  to  keep  order  and  to 
get  work  out  of  children  have  been  pretty 
well  laid  down  in  years  gone  by,  and  inex- 
perienced men  will  do  well  to  note  them. 

^'  An  ounce  of  prevention  is  worth  a 
pound  of  cure."  To  avoid  the  cause  or  the 
occasion  of  disorder  is,  as  a  rule,  far  bet- 
ter than  any  remedy  for  correction.  Love 
of  fun,  love  of  teasing,  love  of  a  fight,  mero 
animal  spirits,  or,  the  more  serious  cause, 
vanity,  are  among  the  principal  grounds 
for  trouble.  Therefore,  we  shall  do  well 
to  avoid  the  occasions  for  the  wrong  dis- 
play of  these  various  gifts  of  nature;  or 
the  occasion  having  arisen,  to  meet  the 
cause  of  the  trouble  rather  than  the  trouble 
itself.  We  shall  meet  love  of  fun  by  our 
own  sense  of  humor;  in  fact,  a  quick 
and  good-natured  humor  is  a  marvellous 
weapon  in  the  hands  of  a  teacher.  To 
laugh  with  a  boy  is  the  next  best  thing  to 
making  him  laugh  with  you.  We  shall 
meet  his  love  of  teasing  by  never  rising 
to  the  bait;  his  love  of  a  fight  by  never 
lowering  ourselves  even  to  argue  or  dis- 
pute; his  animal  spirits  with  a  ready  out- 


DISCIPLINE  135 

let  on  interesting  work;  his  vanity  by  a 
well-thought-out  plan  of  denying  the  occa- 
sion for  its  display.  Most  disorder  can  be 
headed  off  by  guarding  the  approaches  and 
by  providing  beforeliand  for  all  possible 
emergencies.  Is  a  man  calling  in  a  great 
body  of  boys  to  a  schoolroom?  After  his 
manner  of  standing  and  ringing  the  bell 
— personal  characteristics — come,  first,  the 
order  and  ventilation  of  the  room  itself; 
then,  his  own  preparedness:  that  is,  his 
care  to  have  noted  combinations  and  posi- 
tions of  possible  disturbers,  so  that  his  eye 
naturally  and  quietly  lights  on  the  first 
movement  of  the  kind.  Nothing  so  takes 
the  spirit  out  of  disorderly  boys  as  to  find 
the  master  always  easily  ahead.  If  a  man 
cannot  cultivate  that  habit  of  leadership 
which  puts  him  and  keeps  him  ahead  of 
boys  on  their  own  lines,  he  had  better 
never  try  to  handle  them  in  large  bodies. 
Any  self-disciplined  man  of  ordinary  abil- 
ity and  presence  can  cultivate  this  habit  of 
leadership.  It  only  requires  great  care  in 
details  and  wise  following  up  of  each  fail- 
ure. **  John,  you  did  not  obey  the  signal 
promptly,"  or:  ''You  wasted  your  time 
last  hour.     When  I  come  into  this  room 


136    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

again,  you  come  straight  to  me  and  tell 
me  that  you  remember  what  I  have  just 
said."  And  if  he  fails  to  remember,  don't 
fail  to  remind  him  before  you  ring  in 
again.  Such  ways  of  personal  attention 
to  the  faults  of  individuals,  to  bring  out 
their  own  better  sides,  pay  for  the  trouble 
many  times  over  in  the  consequent  freedom 
from  disorder. 

There  is,  even  in  the  best  ordered  rooms, 
a  chance  for  a  spasmodic  outburst,  which 
may  become  more  or  less  general  accord- 
ing to  circumstances  and  the  preparedness 
of  the  master.  A  real  joining  in  the  laugh 
or  a  cool  and  quiet  gesture  or  word  will 
always  restore  order,  unless  some  restless 
spirits  have  planned  a  little  fun  or  a  trial 
of  a  man's  pluck  and  presence  of  mind.  In 
this  case,  if  there  is  danger  of  the  whole 
body  of  boys  getting  out  of  hand,  avoid 
threats  and  bullying,  but  quickly  do  some- 
thing ;  pick  out  a  leader  here  and  there  and 
tell  him  to  take  his  books  and  study  in 
your  own  room.  I  have  sometimes  quietly 
left  the  master's  desk  and  stood  about  in 
different  places  and  spoken  in  low  tones 
to  this  one  and  that  till  the  storm  gradu- 
ally subsided,  a  storm  which,  if  met  by 


DISCIPLINE  137 

temper  or  irritation,  would  liavc  wrecked  a 
master's  authority.  One  evening  when  the 
school  was  in  very  bad  shape,  there  was  a 
determined  effort  to  turn  the  hour  into 
bedlam.  Not  a  word  did  I  say,  but  I 
quickly  took  the  floor  and  moved  about  ap- 
parently as  carelessly  as  if  everybody  was 
hard  at  work,  occasionally  encouraging  a 
boy  to  stick  to  his  work.  By  the  time  the 
evening  was  over  I  had  a  very  good  idea 
of  the  different  storm  centres,  and  could 
have  given  with  certainty  the  names  of 
twenty-five  boys  who  deserved  punishment. 
However,  before  dismissal  I  said :  "  I  feel 
ashamed  for  the  school  that  some  of  you 
have  seemed  determined  to  spoil  the  good 
order  of  the  room,  and  I  know  that  the 
larger  number  of  you  are  also  ashamed  to 
see  some  fellows  persistently  annoying. 
Not  one  of  you  now  in  this  room  would  be 
here  if  this  sort  of  thing  prevailed;  you 
would  not  come  to  such  a  school;  and  I 
know  that  we  can  always  count  on  the 
stronger  fellows,  when  they  come  to  their 
senses,  to  put  do^vm  this  kind  of  bad  blood. 
I  have  been  obliged  to  note  the  names  of 
a  number  of  fellows,  who  I  know  do  not 
really  believe  in  any  sneaking  disorder; 


138    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

and  I  should  feel  mucli  relieved  if  they 
would  come  up  and  tell  me  that  they  have 
made  a  mistake."  This  brought  a  good- 
natured  apology  from  almost  every  sus- 
pect, and  also  from  many  others.  To  one 
suspected  boy  leaving  with  no  such  ex- 
pression: "  John,  why  don't  you  speak  up? 
I  don't  like  your  carrying  yourself  off  as  if 
you  did  not  care." 

* '  I  did  not  mean  anything,  sir. ' ' 
''  Then  do  not  be  afraid  to  say  so.    We 
must  pull  together,  and  trust  each  other." 

This  episode  is  recalled  simply  to  point 
out  the  application  of  the  personal  factor 
even  in  the  little  details  of  handling  a  large 
body  of  boys.  There  were  about  one  hun- 
dred and  seventy-five  boys  in  that  room, 
mostly  all  ready  to  take  fire  at  anything, 
a  crowd  impossible  to  keep  effectually 
at  work  unless  a  proper  tone  prevailed 
throughout.  Absolute  and  fearless  truth 
and  square  dealing  is  sometimes  very  hard 
to  use  on  the  spur  of  the  moment  when  a 
man  realizes  that  a  mob  is  trying  to  rush 
him  otf  his  feet.  But  this  same  straight- 
forward truth  is  his  only  salvation  as  well 
as  his  duty  to  his  charges;  it  will  always 
win.    Whether  in  the  privacy  of  a  man's 


DISCIPLINE  139 

own  room  or  in  the  publicity  of  the  school- 
room, boys  will  always  respond  to  truth 
and  bravery.  It  is  remarkable  how  ready 
a  boy  will  be  to  tell  on  himself.  He  will 
sometimes  come  and  request  to  be  allowed 
to  stand  a  punishment.  And,  furthermore, 
boys  of  all  ages  will  rise  to  a  sense  of  re- 
sponsibility in  putting  down  and,  if  need 
be,  exposing  meanness  and  trickery.  If 
they  are  treated  as  ''  thieves,"  none  are 
more  careful  in  maintaining  ''  honor 
among  thieves."  On  the  contrary,  if  they 
are  treated  in  a  perfectly  honorable  and 
open  way,  they  are  capable  of  exposing  a 
thief  and  driving  him  from  the  community, 
not  only  a  thief,  but  any  pestilent  fellow. 
The  bell  for  afternoon  study  has  rung. 
As  the  boys,  one  hundred  little  fellows,  be- 
tween the  ages  of  twelve  and  fifteen,  come 
pouring  into  the  room,  fresh  and  lively 
from  their  afternoon  play,  it  is  soon  evi- 
dent that  something  is  up.  A  great  blow- 
ing of  noses  and  various  noises  indicative 
of  disgust  preannounce  to  the  master  the 
present  arrival  of  a  disagreeable  odor. 
When  it  floated  as  far  as  his  desk  it  cer- 
tainly proved  its  right  of  announcement. 
A  few  minutes  quiet  and  good-humored 


140    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

repression  brought  study  order.  But  be- 
fore dismissing  the  various  classes,  the 
master  remarked :  ' '  Some  one  has  spilled 
a  very  disagreeable  concoction,  and  he 
owes  us  all  an  apology.  He  will  please 
make  his  excuses  to  me  at  the  end  of  the 
hour. "  As  no  excuse  was  forthcoming,  the 
same  master  said,  in  the  evening,  before  the 
good-night:  "  No  one  has  spoken  about 
that  nasty  smell;  some  stuff  must  have 
been  spilled  on  purpose.  Will  the  monitors 
of  the  house  please  take  up  the  matter  at 
once.  We  do  not  like  to  be  treated  that 
way."  After  a  short  meeting,  conducted 
entirely  by  themselves,  the  four  or  five 
monitors  reported  that  it  was  their  opinion 
that  the  fellow  should  be  sent  up  at  once. 
"  Very  well,  I  am  perfectly  willing  to  let 
the  matter  drop  or  not,  just  as  you  decide, 
but  it  seems  to  me  wiser,  as  you  say,  to 
have  the  boy  come  and  explain  himself." 
Accordingly,  sorely  against  his  will,  a  boy, 
new  to  the  house  and  the  ways  of  the  place, 
was  ushered  into  the  master's  study  to 
"  explain  himself."  At  first  he  was  very 
sulky,  but  when  he  found  that  it  was  not 
for  the  sake  of  punishment,  he  gradually 
thawed  out  and  confessed  that  he  was  the 


DISCIPLINE  141 

importer  of  a  species  of  Gernian  toy,  a 
kind  of  pellet,  made  on  purpose  to  throw 
and  burst  with  this  peculiar  odor.  When 
required,  he  frankly  delivered  up  his  sup- 
ply and  nothing-  more  was  said  on  the 
subject. 

Now  this  may  seem  a  very  trivial  matter, 
and  it  is ;  but  unless  these  trivial  matters, 
by  which  sneaking  mischief  upsets  the 
whole  body,  are  promptly  and  effectively 
disposed  of,  certain  boys  will  find  their 
greatest  pleasure  in  such  pranks.  The  ex- 
citement becomes  all  the  greater  if  there 
is  a  "  to  do,"  and  an  effort  to  discover  and 
punish  the  perpetrator.  A  master  is  ut- 
terly helpless  if  the  mob  instincts  of  a  body 
of  boys  are  aroused.  In  a  school  poorly 
governed  it  may  happen  that  a  man  has 
no  alternative  but  some  kind  of  general 
punishment.  Of  course,  it  is  always  bet- 
ter not  to  pit  oneself  against  the  whole 
body;  if  it  is  possible,  make  a  division, 
pick  out  a  section  or  a  class.  Yet  the  prin- 
ciple is  a  true  one,  that  in  the  same  way 
as  the  result  of  the  honor  or  good  behavior 
of  the  few  is  to  be  shared  by  all,  the  result 
of  the  dishonor  or  bad  behavior  of  a  few 
should  be  shared  by  all.    If,  moreover,  it 


142    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

comes  to  tlie  exacting  of  pnnisliment  from 
a  body  of  boys  for  concerted  disorder,  the 
wise  master  will  detain  himself  with  the 
crowd  rather  than  allow  any  punishment  to 
fall  on  the  few  who  refrain  from  "  lying 
out  of  it,"  or  to  fall  unshared  on  wholly 
innocent  boys.  ' '  I  am  innocent,  but  I  shall 
serve  this  detention  with  all  those  whom 
I  keep  in,  as  I  know  that  some  of  you  are 
innocent.  All  sitting  in  that  section  where 
the  disturbance  arose  will  meet  me  for  a 
quiet  half-hour  together  after  dinner.  Do 
not  come  to  me  with  any  excuses.  I  do  not 
wish  to  hear  who  did  or  who  didn't.  We 
are  all  hurt  by  that  kind  of  underhand  dis- 
order, and  we  shall  all  take  the  conse- 
quences." But  when  they  have  assembled : 
' '  Now,  I  suppose  at  least  twenty  boys  were 
implicated  in  this  tr'ouble;  what  fifteen 
boys  will  take  the  punishment  and  let  the 
others  go?  "  With  a  few  furtive  glances 
about,  by  degrees  fifteen  hands  are  cau- 
tiously displayed.  When  the  half-hour  is 
up, ' '  Now  you  may  go,  but  if  it  would  ease 
any  one's  mind,  I  should  be  pleased  to  hear 
from  each  just  what  he  did. ' ' 

**  I  groaned,  sir." 

"  I  made  a  noise  with  my  feet." 


DISCIPLINE  143 

And  so  on  till  every  hoy  had  made  his 
confession,  and  gone  out  smiling.  So 
ready  are  boys  to  lie  in  concert,  yet  indi- 
vidually to  tell  the  truth  and  to  take  the 
consequences.  But  this  kind  of  way  of 
malmig  a  tone  would  never  be  necessary  in 
a  well-ordered  school.  In  a  place  where 
the  best  boys  are  marked  as  leaders,  under 
men  who  love  their  work,  I  cannot  con- 
ceive of  an  occasion  arising  where  it  would 
be  necessary  to  force  in  this  way  the  crea- 
tion of  proper  public  spirit.  Though  a 
large  schoolroom  is  a  difficult  x^roblem  in 
which  to  work  the  personal  factor,  as  it  is 
a  sort  of  open  sea  for  the  play  of  storms 
and  squalls  Originating  under  the  torrid  or 
freezing  atmosphere  of  other  channels  of 
school-life,  yet  the  personal  factor,  even 
there,  is  an  absolute  necessity.  And,  no 
matter  how  well  ordered  the  school  at 
large,  the  continued  order  of  a  large 
schoolroom  is  absolutely  dependent  on  the 
personality  of  the  man  in  charge.  Lots  of 
men  who  do  well  in  class  and  in  other  parts 
of  the  school  cannot  keep  their  heads 
among  so  many.  Sometimes  the  whole 
body  will  be  so  charged  as  to  explode  at 
the  smallest  spark.     Then  there  must  be 


144    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

somewhere  tlie  iron  door  to  hold  the  fire  in 
check,  or  there  will  be  loss  of  life, — and 
that  door  must  be  a  person. 

The  classroom  is  a  more  satisfactory 
place  for  the  use  of  personal  methods  in 
discipline.  Let  us  see:  the  person,  of 
course,  is  again  the  main  thing.  Next  to 
the  person  comes  the  room,  its  ventilation, 
and  the  convenience  and  order  of  its  ar- 
rangements. A  class  entering  a  room 
should  not  only  see,  but  breathe  cleanli- 
ness and  order.  Dishonor  to  the  room  and 
its  furniture  soon  begets  dishonor  to  the 
work.  Occasions  for  confusion,  especially 
at  the  beginning  of  the  hour,  should  be 
avoided,  and  the  work  be  so  arranged  as 
at  once  to  win  attention.  A  famous  Ger- 
man teacher  used  to  say,  "  Unless  I  can 
command  perfect  order  by  the  interest  of 
my  lesson,  I  am  not  fit  to  be  a  teacher." 
Notice  the  word  ' '  command. ' '  The  atten- 
tion of  the  lazy,  inattentive,  or  playful  boy 
is  commanded  simply  by  a  cunning  appli- 
cation of  the  work  in  hand.  A  thorough 
study  of  individuals  and  a  command  of 
one 's  own  voice  and  manner  will  insure  for 
a  teacher  the  handling  of  his  work  in  such 
a  way  as  eventually  to  command  perfect 


DISCIPLINE  145 

order.  An  air  of  confidence  coupled  with 
unremitting  attention  to  the  lesson  goes 
far  toward  making  every  boy  feel  that  his 
interruptions  are  a  nuisance  to  his  fellows. 
As  the  laggards  trail  in,  they  will  find  the 
lesson  already  well  started,  or  the  master 
at  the  board  demonstrating  something  with 
interest  and  apparent  oblivion  of  their 
tardiness.  Questions  scattered  around 
among  the  careless  soon  pull  things  to- 
gether. Perhaps  the  master's  back  is 
turned  and  he  is  writing  or  figuring,  ex- 
plaining as  he  goes;  he  knows  the  spirit 
that  is  making  a  small  disturbance  or  the 
voice  that  is  persistent  with  untimely  ques- 
tion, and  he  remarks  quietly,  as  he  writes, 
'*  Jack,  I  don't  really  believe  that  you  want 
me  to  stop  to  attend  to  you."  Perhaps 
Jack  needs  a  further  and  more  distinct 
snub.  Turning  and  pointing  to  a  part  of  the 
board  as  much  as  possible  out  of  sight  of 
the  class,  "Go  to  the  board  and  do  ex- 
ample 10  as  well  as  you  can,"  or,  "  Write 
for  us  your  best  translation  of  lines 
75-80." 

"  I  can't  do  it,  sir." 

"  I  am  sorry;  then,  just  make  a  clear 
copy  of  the  Latin," — anything  to  cool  his 


146    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

vanity,  and  give  the  general  impression  of 
the  necessity  for  work.  A  few  words  after 
class  to  one  who  has  been  troublesome  dur- 
ing the  hour  often  give  a  boy  just  the 
necessary  turn.  Eeproof  that"  interrupts 
the  work  or  calls  the  attention  of  others 
to  a  restless,  vain,  or  nervous  child  is  a 
mistake.  Any  kind  of  collision  where  the 
love  of  opposition  is  gratified  should  be 
relegated  to  those  opportunities  where  the 
culprit  can  be  dealt  with  quietly,  swiftly, 
with  little  chance  of  failure,  and,  if  possi- 
ble, in  such  a  spirit  as  to  win  him  from  be- 
ing an  opponent  to  being  a  friend.  A  word 
in  season,  that  is,  at  a  time  when  the 
child's  defences  are  down,  appealing  to 
some  higher  motive;  a  kind  reproof 
coupled  with  words  of  help  and  encourage- 
ment— all  such  means  are  far  superior  to 
any  show  of  authority.  Argument  and 
scolding  are  as  worthless  as  they  are 
wasteful  of  good  fire.  Threats  and  de- 
mands for  promises  of  reform  are  worse. 
Before  a  man  has  come  to  that  point  he 
had  better  turn  over  his  charge  to  the  next 
in  authority.  A  set  meeting  in  one 's  study 
is  generally  the  signal  to  the  boy  for  a 
complete   putting   on   of   his    armor;    an 


DISCIPLINE  147 

under-master  must  be  very  sure  of  himself 
and  of  his  boy  before  he  dare  hale  a  culprit 
to  his  sanctum.  Let  him  keep  that  for  his 
friends  and  for  those  whom  he  is  sure  to 
make  his  friends.  A  lecture  ending  with- 
out mutual  understanding,  within  the  four 
walls  of  a  man's  own  room,  with  all  his 
home  pictures  and  other  personal  fringes 
hitting  a  boy  in  the  face,  is  a  pretty  sure 
way  to  place  a  permanent  barrier  to  his 
heart.  When  severity  is  necessary,  the 
empty  classroom  is  a  more  fitting  place. 
As  the  class  is  leaving: 
^'  Tom,  stay  in  your  seat." 

Then  a  few  minutes  of  absolute  disre- 
gard of  the  boy  by  the  man,  who  is  busy 
correcting  work,  may  bring  forth  this 
conversation : 

"  Why,  Tom,  what  are  you  doing 
herel  " 

'*  You  told  me  to  stay,  sir." 

''  Why  did  I  tell  you  to  stay?  " 

"  Because  I  spoke  out,  I  suppose." 

''  Is  that  all  you  did?  " 

"  Yes,  sir." 

' '  Would  I  keep  you  in  just  for  speaking 
out?  " 

'*  You  did,  sir." 


148    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

"  Have  I  not  told  you  a  great  many 
times  that  you  interrupt  our  work?  " 

"  Yes,  sir." 

*'  Then  it  seems  as  if  you  did  not  care." 

*'  I  do  care." 

*'  I  know  you  do.  I  just  want  you  to 
stop  and  think  a  minute.    Good-bye ! ' ' 

The  cunning  devices  that  a  man  may  use 
to  win  attention  and  bring  a  child  to  his 
right  mind  are  as  varied  as  the  characters 
of  men  and  children. 

The  time  comes,  however,  now  and 
again,  when  a  man  may  feel  that  patience 
can  no  longer  do  her  perfect  work.  Do  not 
then  delay,  but  promptly  turn  the  whole 
matter  over  to  your  superior,  with  no 
strings  to  your  report;  let  the  bare  facts 
of  the  case  suffice,  so  there  may  be  no 
chance  for  the  exercise  of  personal  resent- 
ment. How  common  it  is  to  hear  a  teacher 
admit  that  he  is  having  trouble  with  a 
certain  boy!  A  man  should  never  allow 
himself  to  be  in  sudi  a  position  with  any 
child.  Such  an  admission  on  his  part  com- 
pels his  abdication  from  the  position  of 
master.  When  a  case  is  referred  to  a  su- 
perior, again  it  is  to  win  the  boy,  not  to 
enforce   a   punishment;    and   the   teacher 


DISCIPLINE  149 

should  show  this  by  his  whole  manner.  The 
head-master,  from  his  position,  should 
know  many  things  about  the  boy  unknown 
to  his  assistants,  and  also  has  it  in  his 
power  to  bring  forces  to  bear  on  the  boy 
other  than  a  regulation  punishment. 

But,  after  all  is  said  and  done,  it  is 
hardly  conceivable  that  a  school  should  be 
able  to  dispense  with  some  regular,  recog- 
nized form  of  punishment.  Such  i3unish- 
ment,  however,  should  evidently  be  under 
the  direct  control  of  the  head  of  the  school, 
and  never  allowed  to  drift  into  a  merely 
automatic  system.  Every  report  for  mis- 
conduct or  failure  in  duty,  emanating  from 
an  under-master,  should  go  to  one  in  direct 
authority  over  the  boy,  to  the  one  who 
knows  as  far  as  possible  all  the  circum- 
stances of  the  child's  life.  In  a  large 
school  the  labor  of  inspecting  every  report 
might  be  very  great ;  therefore,  the  system 
should  be  such  as  to  enable  the  head-master 
so  to  delegate  this  work  to  house-masters 
that  not  only  might  he  spare  himself  un- 
necessary labor  more  easily  done  by  others, 
but  might  be  enabled  to  leave  the  school 
for  a  time  with  no  appreciable  difference 
in  the  working  of  the  system. 


150    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

The  subject  of  excuses  deserves  careful 
consideration  in  any  system,  such  careful 
consideration  that  children  may  learn  not 
to  make  excuses.  The  effort  to  be  perfectly 
just,  and  the  temptation  to  win  good  will, 
dictates  generally  too  great  leniency  in 
granting  excuses.  The  ideal  would  be  such 
care  on  the  part  of  masters  before  sending 
in  reports  that  no  excuses  would  be  con- 
sidered. Furthermore,  such  a  harmful 
thing  for  a  child  is  the  habit  of  seeking  to 
excuse  himself,  and  so  necessary  for  us  all 
to  learn  to  take  manfully  even  apparent 
injustice,  that  of  the  two  evils  to  be 
avoided,  the  excuse  habit  is  worse  than  the 
occasional  miscarriage  of  justice.  While 
it  is  worth  while  to  meet  half-way  a  boy's 
own  sense  of  justice  and  truth,  it  is  our 
bounden  duty  to  educate  his  sense  of  jus- 
tice and  truth  to  the  highest  level,  and  also 
to  teach  him  to  suffer,  if  need  be,  unjustly 
for  the  sake  of  others.  A  small  boy,  stand- 
ing in  front  of  me  and  his  eyes  flashing 
defiance,  says: 

*'  I  won't  do  it;  it  isn't  fair." 

* '  Just  sit  down  a  minute ;  there  is  a  book 
to  look  at  while  I  finish  a  few  lines  that  I 
am  writing." 


DISCIPLINE  151 

After  a  pause  of,  say,  five  minutes,  while 
my  pen  is  moving,  but  my  heart  praying 
that  I  may  win  that  boy: 

''  No,  it  does  not  seem  fair  to  you,  nor  is 
it  fair  to  me  to  stay  in  during  this  beauti- 
ful day  because  others  have  failed.  The 
little  thing  which  you  did  arose  simply 
from  the  wrongdoing  of  several  other  fel- 
lows; a  man  cannot  see  and  know  every- 
thing; your  master  did  the  best  he  knew 
how.  I  want  you  to  learn  to  take  a  little 
injustice  now  and  then,  and  to  bear  with 
me  some  of  the  troubles  of  other  fellows. 
You  know  how  often  you  deserve  punish- 
ment and  do  not  get  it;  in  the  long  run, 
the  well-mannered,  square  boy  gets  his 
due." 

*'  All  right,  sir,  I'll  do  it,  but  it  isn't 
fair,"  will  almost  surely  come  from  his 
lips;  and  you  have  taken  one  step  nearer 
your  goal  with  that  youngster.  It  is  won- 
derful how  a  few  minutes'  quiet  with  a 
man  who  is  a  friend  will  give  the  best  side 
of  a  boy  a  chance  to  assert  itself. 

This  brings  us  to  the  consideration  of 
the  forms  of  punishment  to  be  used  by 
those  in  authority.  "Whatever  task  is  set 
for  a  punishment   should  be   one  worth 


152    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

while  in  itself.  Experience  bears  me  out 
in  asserting  that  only  two  kinds  of  penalty 
are  practical  in  a  school  other  than  mili- 
tary: namely,  writing  lines  and  walking. 
The  latter,  of  course,  is  the  better  theo- 
retically, but  practically  a  combination  of 
both  is  advisable.  When  a  stated  punish- 
ment is  resorted  to,  it  makes  little  differ- 
ence in  its  deterrent  effect  what  that  pun- 
ishment is,  so  long  as  the  child's  liberty  is 
absolutely  curtailed.  Walking  is  a  good 
set  punishment,  because  it  keeps  the  child 
in  the  air  and  should  put  him  in  better 
shape,  if  the  exercise  is  carefully  guarded 
and  made  disciplinary.  A  great  many 
^  boys  can  be  kept  walking  in  a  line  around 
a  quad  or  back  lot,  with  the  under- 
standing that  a  certain  number  of  times 
around  at  a  fixed  pace  constitute  the  stint : 
a  half-hour  is  about  the  limit  during  which 
to  make  this  a  successful  punishment. 
Boys  who  have  longer  detentions  should 
then  turn  into  the  schoolroom  to  do 
copy :  that  is,  to  copy  neatly  so  many  lines 
in  such  a  time  from  a  history  or  English 
book.  This  is  practical  and  in  itself  a 
helpful  exercise;  and  I  do  not  believe  any 
higher   mental    exercises   practical.     One 


DISCIPLINE  153 

hour,  however,  of  indoor  detention  should 
be  a  limit.  If  further  detention  is  required, 
it  should  be  done  again  in  the  oi^en  air. 

In  all  regulation  punishment  or  regula- 
tion demerits,  it  is  helpful  to  have  regu- 
lation credits  given  for  periods  of  entire 
freedom  from  reports  for  misconducts 
Yet  here  again,  to  obtain  the  best  results 
the  personal  factor  is  important — that  the 
boy  should  be  obliged  to  face  duty  in  the 
person  of  a  superior  for  every  demerit  or 
credit.  These  things  should  not  be  allowed 
to  pile  up  for  future  settling.  The  child 
who  requires  much  discipline  does  little 
reasoning.  Nothing  is  accomplished  by 
holding  over  him  future  punishment,  or 
by  assuming  that  such  and  such  results 
are  ' '  up  to  the  boy  ' '  to  foresee  and  guard 
against.  He  should  arrive  as  quickly  as 
possible  up  against  a  wall. 

Discipline  at  boarding  school  will  al- 
ways be  a  problem.  The  ideal  professional 
parent  can  never  expect  to  attain  to  the 
ideal  natural  parent.  But  do  not  let  any 
of  us  think  that  it  can  be  settled  by  ma- 
chinery. "  Life  for  life;"  the  heart  can 
be  won  only  by  heart's  blood,  never  by 
blows  and  browbeating.     I  once  heard  a 


154    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

noted  school-master  speaking  in  praise  of 
his  detention  system,  ''  Oh!  it  is  a  great 
system,  it  breaks  a  boy  do-wn  in  the  end  ' ' ; 
and  another,  ' '  My  plan  is  just  to  keep  his 
nose  to  the  grindstone."  Yes,  these  are 
ideas  still  held  and  practised  in  our  Chris- 
tian schools,  greatly  to  our  shame  and  dis- 
grace. There  are  cases,  I  suppose,  where  the 
animal  must  be  broken,  but  I  do  not 
recall  the  successful  application  of  school 
discipline  in  such  a  case  during  an  expe- 
rience of  over  twenty-five  years.  The 
forceful,  loving  will  of  a  patient  man  or 
woman  standing  for  truth  and  justice,  is 
the  only  thing  that  I  have  ever  seen  able  to 
produce  salutary  fear. 


vni 


THE   CLASS 


IN  his  class  the  man  is  king,  or  the 
teacher  must  flee. 

"  I  am  looking  for  an  under-teacher.  I 
want  first  a  man,  and  next  a  man  to  teach," 
remarked  a  head-master;  of  such  impor- 
tance in  the  classroom  is  the  personality 
of  the  teacher. 

Dean  Briggs,  who  reports  this  remark, 
says,  in  another  place:  ''In  the  best 
teacher,  also,  is  a  personal  force  that  in- 
spires some  boys  with  the  desire  to  work 
and  compels  others  to  work,  till  working 
becomes  a  precious,  even  a  priceless,  habit 
of  their  lives.  He  is  not  full  of  devices  and 
patent  appliances  for  interesting  his  pu- 
pils; he  is  not  full  of  theories  and  fads: 
he  does  his  own  work,  even  the  drudgery 
of  it,  with  enthusiasm  for  it  and  for  his 
calling.  He  corrects,  chastens,  guides, 
kindles   the   love   of   learning;   and   con- 

155 


156    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

stantly  he  gives  to  eager  eyes  some 
glimpses  of  that  high  enjoyment  to  which 
learning  and  discipline  may  lead:  but  he 
never  sacrifices  the  discipline  to  any  royal 
road  of  pleasure." 

In  the  class  there  is  a  peculiar  force  to 
personality,  inasmuch  as  there  are  all  the 
different  personalities  to  be  dealt  with  in 
such  a  way  as  to  cause  the  force  exerted  on 
each  to  be  equal  to  the  sum  of  the  best 
of  all  the  parts.  A  man  who  can  get  the 
good  will  and  attention  of  his  class  is  ex- 
erting on  every  boy  the  force  of  truth  not 
only  through  his  own  personality,  but 
through  that  of  the  several  and  combined 
personalities  of  all  the  others;  not  only 
that  a  truth  is  turned  and  looked  at  on 
many  sides,  but  it  is  as  if  twenty  voices 
were  appealing  to  each  boy's  mind  to  open, 
to  hear,  and  to  work.  A  word  spoken  to 
a  whole  body  of  people,  when  their  minds 
move  in  comparative  concert,  makes  an 
impression  far  stronger  than  the  same 
word  spoken  to  one  alone.  Call  it  what  you 
please,  hypnotic  power  or  magnetism  in 
the  leader  that  starts  the  thought  trans- 
ference, the  larger  the  number  held  by  the 
spell  the  more  impelling  the  call  to  every 


THE  CLASS  157 

mind.  The  wliole  equation,  therefore,  is  . 
the  resultant  of  the  unifying  of  these  many 
forces  into  one  line  of  thought  and  work 
by  the  skilled  teacher.  And  this  fact  is 
very  important  for  every  teacher  to  grasp, 
for  these  separate  minds  and  wills,  with- 
out any  leader,  naturally  unify  into  a  hope- 
less mass  of  inattention  and  laziness,  if 
not  of  absolute  rebellion. 

For  the  child,  the  class  training  should 
be  one  of  great  value  in  many  ways,  not 
the  least  of  which  should  be  the  gain  in 
power  not  only  to  get  for  himself  the  best 
that  is  given  broadcast,  so  to  speak,  but 
also  to  add  his  share  to  the  general  good. 
Some  children  with  excellent  abilities  seem 
to  require  the  constant  eye  and  personal 
attention  of  the  teacher  to  be  centred  on 
them,  or  they  fail  to  take  in  the  explana-  , 
tion.  The  effort  should  be  to  turn  this  I 
vanity,  or  dependence,  or  whatever  it  may 
be,  into  the  kind  of  self-respect  that  is  / 
ashamed  to  be  the  exception,  and  glories  in 
being  an  addition  to,  instead  of  a  sub- 
traction from,  his  class. 

We  come,  therefore,  to  the  consideration 
of  the  real  object  that  the  teacher  sets  be- 
fore himself  and  his  class;  namely,   the 


158    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

training  to  think  and  to  work  with  others 
and  for  others  in  such  a  way  as  to  stimu- 
late thought.  ''  The  teacher  and  the 
trainer  has  to  make  his  pupil  strong,  and 
skilful  in  himself,  to  direct  existing  pow- 
ders, and  call  new  powers  into  existence. 
The  learner  does  not  want  to  be  made  a 
jreceptacle  of  other  men's  words  and 
thoughts,  but  to  be  made  a  thinker  of 
thoughts,  and  a  wielder  of  words  himself. 
It  is  true  that  material  must  be  collected  or 
there  can  be  no  thought;  and  that  the 
thinker,  as  Aristotle  says,  must  learn  to 
become  a  skilled  workman  by  working  at 
that  in  which  his  skill  is  afterwards  to  be 
shown;  so  far  knowledge  is  necessary." 
Thus  writes  the  great  Thring,  and  he  con- 
tinues in  the  same  connection:  *'  To  ai> 
proach  the  question  from  another  side ;  the 
possession  of  great  knowledge  is  given  but 
to  few.  The  average  of  general  efficiency 
is  alone  worth  considering  in  dealing  with 
what  teaching  and  training  can  do.  Here 
there  neither  is,  nor  can  be  any  doubt. 
Workmen  are  wanted.  The  work  of  the 
world  cannot  get  on  without  workmen.  .  .  . 
The  need  of  the  world  at  any  moment  is 
not  wealth — that  is  the  result  of  work  fin- 


THE  CLASS  159 

islied  and  done;  but  work  and  workers — 
that  is  the  living  i)ower  and  skill  that  con- 
tinue to  produce;  .  .  .  without  the  pro- 
ducing power,  how  poor,  how  impossible 
prolonged  possession  becomes.  .  .  .  The 
ordinary  mind  with  the  ordinary  memory 
cannot  accumulate  wealth  of  knowledge, 
and  is  but  a  poor  shop;  whilst  it  can  be 
trained  to  do  very  good  work,  and  turned 
out  in  the  world-market  a  skilled  workman 
at  high  wages.  Few  have  time  at  their 
command  to  pile  in  knowledge.  And  there 
is  little  room  for  many  such  accumulators. 
In  fact,  a  great  memory  is  a  great  maker 
of  common-place,  unless  overmatched  by 
much  original  power;  and  the  attempt  to 
load  the  mind  with  knowledge  often  means 
crowding  out  all  originality  and  freshness, 
and  putting  very  little  in. ' '  Yet  this  same 
attempt  to  impart  knowledge  beyond  neces- 
sity is  a  great  temptation  to  a  teacher. 
Children  are  naturally  alive  to  anything 
new;  they  love  to  listen  to  the  man  who 
tells  them  things.  A  class  may  easily  be 
turned  into  a  mutual  admiration  society, 
where  the  teacher  displays  his  knowledge 
and  his  art  at  im]^arting  this  knowledge, 
and  where  the  children  sit  in  rapt  atten- 


160    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

tion  at  the  display.  One  is  tempted  to 
wonder  at  the  quality  of  work  done  in  a 
classroom  from  which  comes  daily  the  al- 
most uninterrupted  flow  of  the  teacher's 
voice.  Lecturing  is  not  teaching,  no  mat- 
ter how  interesting  to  young  and  old.  Lis- 
tening to  explanations  and  dissertations 
goes  far  toward  training  children  to  mental 
imbecility,  unless  absolutely  necessary  as 
ground  for  work.  Most  of  the  lecturing  in 
the  class,  whose  duty  is  training  in  effi- 
ciency, can  better  be  done  by  drawing  out 
explanations  from  the  children  and  by 
leading  them,  as  far  as  possible,  to  dis- 
cover and  deduce  the  necessary  knowledge 
for  themselves. 

''  All  the  world  knows  Socrates,"  to 
quote  again  from  the  same  inspiring 
teacher.  "  Many  schools  of  philosophy, 
and  a  countless  number  of  paths  of  re- 
search, and  a  countless  number  of  learned 
men,  owe  their  existence  to  Socrates.  Soc- 
rates was  a  great  teacher;  but  in  moderi> 
phrase  he  taught  nothing.  Socrates  is 
judged  to  be  the  greatest  teacher  the  secu- 
lar world  ever  had;  but  he  poured  no 
knowledge  in,  whether  by  pumping  on 
kettles  open  or  shut.    Socrates  gave  a  de- 


THE  CLASS  161 

scription  of  himself  as  a  teaclier.  lie 
describes  himself  as  a  man-midwife  for 
mind;  who  assisted  other  people  to  bring 
into  the  world  new  births  of  mind.  AVhat 
a  noble,  yet  simple,  definition  of  what  all 
teaching  should  contemplate — new  births 
of  mind.  He  created  a  science  of  question- 
ing, which  to  this  hour  bears  his  name; 
but  the  answers  were  theoretically  already 
in  the  persons  questioned.  His  system  pre- 
supposed material  gathered,  but  material 
gathered  in  order  to  make  the  after-struc- 
ture of  thought." 

Now  this  temptation  to  the  teacher  to 
pump  knowledge  on  his  class  has  its  friend 
and  follower:  namely,  the  temptation  to 
prepare  a  class  for  an  examination.  No 
apology  is  necessary  for  continuing  the 
quotation,  as  will  readily  be  admitted, 
when  viewed  in  its  bearing  on  some  of  our 
modern  methods.  "  His  questions  have 
been  searching  the  world  ever  since  they 
were  put  into  it,  and  have  quickened  the 
perception  of  all  generations ;  but  Socrates 
could  not  have  produced  a  single  pupil  able 
to  show  a  modern  examiner  what  he  had 
gained;  or  to  satisfy  (satisfy,  we  call  it) 
an  examiner's  demand  for  knowledge  in  a 


162    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

modern  examination  paper.  In  the  first 
place,  Socrates  imparted  no  knowledge  at 
all;  and  examinations  have  knowledge  as 
their  work  and  aim.  Socrates,  therefore, 
would  be  nowhere  in  an  examiner's  speci- 
men list.  Socrates  again  scornfully  re- 
jected  everything  of  the  Manual  type,  and 
all  cut  and  dried  rules  and  formulas,  but 
these  are  the  stock  in  trade  of  competitive 
examinations.  Socrates  therefore  would 
starve  in  the  enlightened  nineteenth  cen- 
tury as  a  teacher;  there  is  no  room  for 
teachers."  (We  are  hoping  better  things 
for  the  twentieth  century.)  "  He  would 
have  to  wear  shoes,  and  make  them  for  a 
livelihood.  On  the  other  hand,  Socrates 
the  teacher,  not  the  shoemaker,  applied  so 
subtle  an  instrument  of  mind  by  his  ques- 
tions to  all  he  met  that  he  forced  them  to 
sift  and  arrange  their  ideas.  Socrates  the 
teacher  sent  a  plough  into  the  hearts  of 
men,  and  broke  up  the  ground,  and  then 
followed  with  living  breath  of  strange 
efficacy,  like  a  spring  wind,  and  called  out 
into  new  existence  all  the  latent  germinat- 
ing power,  all  the  push  of  life  within. 
Socrates  sent  new  longings,  and  new  ca- 
pacities for  satisfying  longings,  into  his 


THE  CLASS  163 

disciples,  not  new  knowledge  in  the  modem 
sense:  and  the  receptive  mind  gathered 
strength  and  clearness,  felt  its  want,  and 
eagerly  set  about  supplying  it.  So  it  came 
to  pass  that  Socrates,  who  taught  nothing, 
produced  disciples  that  learnt  everything." 

The  teacher,  therefore,  is  the  sower  oJ 
seed,  not  the  feeder  of  rij^ened  fruit;  th^ 
cultivator  of  the  soil,  to  make  the  min(j 
eager  and  receptive;  the  happy  workmai 
who  by  the  contagion  of  his  own  exampl 
wins  his  pupils  to  work  with  him. 

Though  we  believe  that  the  true  wort 
of  a  teacher  is  better  appreciated  than  in 
the  days  of  Thring,  yet  the  very  helps  be- 
ing put  forth  in  these  days  in  the  way  of 
text-books  are  a  constant  temptation,  and 
teachers  need  to  be  on  their  guard  against 
the  same  old  enemy  that  would  feed  us 
direct  from  the  Tree  of  Knowledge.  New 
and  perfected  text-books  are  all  very  well 
if  they  are  taken,  jSrst,  as  aids  to  the 
teacher  to  think  himself,  to  get  his  own 
hand  firmly  on  the  Tree  of  Life,  and  to  lift 
each  child  just  far  enough  to  get  hold  and 
climb  for  himself;  and,  then,  as  aids  to 
teach  his  pupils  to  think.  But  I  have  seen 
a  good  and  conscientious  man  almost  kill 


164    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

the  desire  for  any  real  intellectual  life  on 
the  part  of  his  pupils;  turned,  as  it  were, 
into  a  kind  of  clerk  of  the  works,  ' '  whose 
main  business  it  is  to  make  the  workers 
tie  up  little  packages  of  rules,  label  them 
neatly,  docket  them,  and  pack  them  into 
the  pigeon-holes  of  memory,  to  be  brought 
out  whenever  asked  for,  pat!  This  state 
of  things  produces  grammars  also  bris- 
tling with  technical  terms,  labels  for  every- 
thing, endless  lists  of  endless  usages,  all 
with  their  separate  names;  because  a 
name,  whether  understood  or  not,  can  be 
produced  at  call,  when  the  simple  princi- 
ple, by  which  the  thought  takes  shape  in 
words,  would  very  often  explain  them  all 
without  the  need  of  names;  but  then  this 
cannot  be  learnt  as  a  lesson  by  rote  by 
forty  boys  at  a  time.  .  .  . 

''  As  soon  as  individual  minds  are  not 
the  province  of  a  teacher's  work,  nor  each 
separate  difficulty  his  care,  as  soon  as 
knowledge,  rules,  and  memory  engross  at- 
tention, numbers  are  immaterial.  There 
is  the  prescribed  packet  to  be  learnt;  if 
a  boy  does  not  learn  it,  it  is  no  business 
of  the  clerk  of  the  works,  beyond  punish- 
ing him  for  not  doing  it.    This  soon  passes 


THE  CLASS  165 

into  a  neglect  of  those  who  cannot,  or  will 
not,  pigeon-hole  the  daily  quota;  this  nat- 
urally advances  to  finding  them  very  much 
in  the  way ;  the  next  step  is  that  in  the  in- 
terest of  the  better  boys  (so  runs  the 
story)  they  must  be  got  rid  of.  So  the 
school  failures  are  turned  out,  and  great 
authority  quoted  to  support  the  practice; 
and  all  the  energy  of  the  place  is  ex- 
pended on  the  strong  and  active,  who  will 
distinguish  themselves  in  the  knowledge 
scramble." 

The  examination  certainly  has  its  legiti- 
mate place  in  the  school,  as  has  the  ac- 
quiring of  knowledge,  but  the  teacher  must 
ever  hold  before  himself  that  the  one  thing 
for  which  the  class  is  assembled  before  him 
is  to  learn,  collectively  and  individually, 
to  think.  Even  accuracy  is  at  times  to 
be  sacrificed  to  progress  in  thought.  We 
have  seen  this  progress  paralyzed  by  a 
wrong  stress  on  accuracy.  To  think  is  the 
first  thing,  even  though  the  thought  be 
hardly  intelligible;  and  then  comes  the 
training  in  accuracy,  when  the  child  ia 
taught  to  express  the  thought.  The  same 
authority  as  quoted  above  remarks  in  this 
connection:  ''  There  is  something  so  wise, 


lAIfiNOKMALSQiu 


166    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

so  unanswerable,  in  tlie  modest,  yet  firm, 
requirement  that  tlie  lessons  must  be  done 
thoroughly,  and  a  boy  not  advance  till  he 
has  mastered  what  he  is  doing,  that  the 
request  commands  assent  at  once;  there 
is  also  so  real  a  truth  underlying  the  dic- 
tum that  the  fallacy  involved  in  it  easily 
escapes  notice.  The  fallacy  is, — it  cannot 
be  done.  There  is  no  power  in  the  minds 
of  the  young  to  master  a  subject  thor^ 
oughly.  Thorough  mastery  is  the  result 
of  trained  skill,  and  it  is  absurd  to  demand 
the  perfection  of  trained  skill  from  the 
untrained  beginner.  The  map-work  which 
transfers  to  the  mind  a  complete  plan  of 
the  country  belongs  to  men;  it  is  enough, 
and  more  than  enough,  if  the  boy  can  find 
his  way  about  fairly  well,  and  appreciate 
the  landscape.  Any  attempt  to  linger  too 
long  over  the  same  work  will  only  end  in 
weariness  and  deadening  the  interest. 
Words  and  work,  when  stale,  become  to 
the  young  mere  empty  sounds,  meaningless 
rote-work.  There  must  be  change.  Loose- 
ness indeed  is  fatal.  Wliat  is  known  ought 
to  be  known  with  exactness;  but  a  gap  is 
no  harm,  unless  it  is  in  the  middle  of  the 
main  highway.    Monotony  is  the  greatest 


THE  CLASS  167 

enemy  a  teacher  has  to  deal  with.  There 
is  much  danger,  where  all  is  new,  as  it  is 
with  beginners,  lest  a  boy  find  a  dead  level 
without  landmarks  to  guide.  Where  all 
is  new,  all  cannot  be  mastered,  and  in  the 
first  confusion,  unless  he  moves  on,  there 
is  nothing  to  show  what  is  intended  to  be 
done,  or  where  he  is  to  go.  .  .  .  Many  dif- 
ficulties in  learning  cannot  be  mastered  by 
standing  still  over  them;  they  can  only 
be  got  rid  of  by  movement." 

In  teaching  to  think,  one  cannot  begin 
too  early  to  encourage  and  train  to  prac- 
tical expression  the  power  of  originality. 
Many  of  the  present-day  systems,  both  in 
work  and  play,  discourage  initiative  on  the 
part  of  the  child.  Without  entering  into 
a  discussion  on  the  true  balance  of  indi- 
viduality and  the  sinking  of  individuality 
in  the  common  good,  we  may  here  take  it 
for  granted  that  the  best  interests  of  all 
men  demand  the  highest  development  of 
each;  and  this,  of  course,  demands  the 
training  of  initiative  in  every  child.  Great 
patience  and  tact  on  the  part  of  the 
teacher  are  required  in  order  to  train 
some  children  in  originality  and,  at  the 
same  time,  in  proper  submission  to  and 


168    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

consideration  of  others ;  but  if  that  is  what 
the  man  is  looking  for  rather  than  perfec- 
tion in  set  work,  his  joy  at  the  discovery 
of  great  possibilities  in  children,  and  in 
training  such  rare  ones  to  usefulness,  is 
not  the  least  part  of  his  reward.  More- 
over, their  self-expression  becomes  an  ex- 
ample and  an  incentive  to  every  member 
of  a  class.  The  plodder  and  the  genius 
must  learn  to  work  side  by  side,  to  respect 
one  another,  and  to  add,  each  his  share,  to 
the  common  good  by  patient  toil. 

We  have  touched  upon  all  these  points 
in  earlier  chapters,  but  their  great  impor- 
tance is  a  sufficient  excuse  for  their  repeti- 
tion.    The   classroom,    as   well   as   every 
other  part  of  the  school,  should  teach  close 
application,  not  to  the  mere  acquiring  of 
set  lessons  or  to  the  ' '  puttir.g  in  "  of  cer- 
tain hours,  but  directly  to  the  formation 
of   habits   of   industry.     It   is   evidently, 
therefore,  the  first  duty  of  the  teacher,  in 
/  season  and  out  of  season,  by  precept  and 
(   example,    to    teach   his    children   how   to 
\  work;  and  this  can  be  done  in  some  cases 
^  only  at  great  personal  sacrifice. 

In  the  class,  gossip  of  any  sort,  references 
to  discipline  or  to  any  matter  not  bearing 


THE  CLASS  1G9 

directly  on  the  work  in  hand,  should  be 
avoided.  The  attention  of  every  indi- 
vidual is  what  the  teacher  should  aim  at; 
and  this  comes  only  to  the  man  who  is  giv- 
ing his  best  attention  to  every  individual. 
''  The  boy  mind,"  says  Thring,  "  is  much 
like  a  frolicking  puppy,  always  in  motion, 
restless,  but  never  in  the  same  position 
two  minutes  together,  when  really  awake. 
Naturally  his  body  partakes  of  this  unset- 
tled character.  Attention  is  a  lesson  to  be 
learned;  and  quite  as  much  a  matter  of 
training  as  any  other  lesson.  A  teacher 
will  be  saved  much  useless  friction  if  he 
acknowledges  this  fact,  and  instead  of  ex- 
pecting attention,  which  he  will  not  get, 
starts  at  once  with  the  intention  of  teach- 
ing it;  being  well  assured  that  it  would 
be  just  as  sensible  to  look  for  the  Latin 
Grammar  to  be  spun  off  the  reel  by  the 
light  of  nature,  without  book,  as  for  atten- 
tion to  be  got  without  training.  A  teacher 
will  teach  this  as  a  lesson,  and  will  exer- 
cise all  his  skill  in  teaching  it,  and  be  pa- 
tient with  beginners,  and  command  it  by 
life,  good-humor,  and  go.  ...  A  sleepy 
manner,  however  strong  the  real  interest 
taken  by  the  master  may  be,  produces  in 


170    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

tlie  taught  either  laziness  and  apathy  in 
the  lazy,  or  tricks  in  the  puppy  section. 
It  is  most  disastrous  in  anything  belong- 
ing to  discipline  to  overlook  beginnings. 
No  leak  ever  broke  up  a  dyke  more  cer- 
tainly than  trifles  passed  over  break  up  the 
order  of  a  class.  There  is,  however,  a 
worse  fault  still,  a  fault  which  is  almost 
universal:  this  is,  to  legalize  insubordina- 
tion by  having  a  set  of  small  routine  pun- 
ishments, and  imposing  them  regularly. 
This  makes  a  regular  crop  of  the  fault; 
and  the  fault  becomes  an  established  insti- 
tution, and  what  began  as  a  bit  of  careless- 
ness ends  by  being  a  tolerated  crime.  Lit- 
tle breaches  of  order  ought  to  be  met  by 
the  personal  authority  of  the  teacher's 
words  and  influence.  If  that  is  not  enough, 
they  should  be  promptly  stamped  out  by 
real  severity. 

**  Inattention  creeps  in  at  another  door. 
The  operators  are  apt  to  forget  the  class, 
which  is  their  real  work,  and  to  be  ab- 
sorbed in  the  book  and  the  boy  doing  it, 
whilst  the  rest  are  comparatively  disre- 
garded. The  rest  accordingly  are  inat- 
tentive, for  the  operator  is  teaching  them 
inattention  by  being  inattentive  to  them. 


THE  CLASS  171 

They  are  his  main  care,  and  not  to  care 
for  them  brings  its  own  punishment  in  not 
being  cared  for.  First  one,  then  another, 
takes  advantage  of  the  absent  eye,  and  dis- 
order begins,  and  in  spite  of  spasmodic 
severity  becomes  the  rule.  Instant,  watch- 
ful— if  need  be,  pitiless — repression  of  the 
first  sign  of  inattention  is  the  only  law  of 
discipline.  Nothing  ought  to  escape  a 
teacher  that  the  boys  do,  for  he  is  there 
to  train  the  boys  in  what  they  do.  .  .  .  As 
mind  has  to  be  dealt  with,  mind  must  be 
there.  And  however  clever  the  performer 
may  be,  he  might  as  well  stand  up,  and 
solemnly  set  about  giving  a  lesson  to  the 
clothes  of  the  class  hanging  round  his 
room  on  pegs,  while  the  owners  were  play- 
ing cricket,  as  to  the  so-called  class,  if  the 
boys  are  careless,  playing,  or  noisy.  Cul- 
pable inattention  in  the  boys  is  above  all 
things  a  master's  fault.  Able,  earnest 
men,  who  attend  to  the  class,  will  always 
find  the  class  attend  to  them." 

The  difference  between  sitting  over 
books  and  an  eager  desire  to  make  the 
most  of  his  time  must  occasionally  be 
plainly  pointed  out  to  a  boy.  How  to  learn 
must  be  drilled  into  him  to  the  destruction 


172    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

of  his  delusions  about  work.  We  often  see 
a  fine  conscientious  boy  making  himself 
stupid  and  unhappy  over  work  that  he  can 
be  taught  to  do  easily  and  happily. 

There  are  what  may  be  called  mechan- 
ical agencies  which  are  a  great  help;  a 
well-lighted  and  well-ventilated  room  in 
which  the  best  appliances  are  found  for 
work:  the  class  so  arranged  as  to  have 
every  boy  as  nearly  as  possible  face  the 
teacher,  so  that  he  can  keep  them  well  be- 
fore him  in  a  compact  body,  thus  easily 
looking  into  each  boy's  face  to  see  if  he 
is  following  the  work:  the  position  of 
every  boy  while  supposedly  at  work.  A 
teacher  will  not  neglect  this  law  of  nature, 
that  position  of  body  is  not  only  an  index 
of  mind,  but  a  decided  influence  in  itself. 
^*  Few  suspect,"  as  has  been  well  said, 
''  how  much  the  waters  of  Helicon  are 
contaminated  by  the  slime  which  oozes  in 
through  this  unguarded  sluice." 

Finally,  too  long  detention,  either  in 
school  or  out  of  school,  completely  unfits 
a  boy  for  attention.  Let  any  candid 
teacher  test  his  own  ability  to  stick  closely 
at  work  which  requires  push  for  the  length 
of  time  for  which  even  our  children  of  ten 


THE  CLASS  173 

and  twelve  are  detained  at  school;  let  any 
candid  teacher  ask  himself  if  he  has  found 
it  possible  to  train  children  to  attention 
who  are  kex:)t  over  their  books  eight  hours 
a  day.  Every  man  of  experience  knows 
the  answer  to  these  questions,  and  yet 
what  is  the  remedy  that  we  see  applied  to 
the  inattentive,  slack-twisted  boyf  More 
detention!  Our  schools  will  continue  to 
turn  out  their  crop  of  formal  dunces  and 
men  looking  for  "  easy  snaps,"  till  every 
teacher  fairly  faces  and  works  over  the 
problem,  '^  How  am  I  going  to  teach  that 
child  attention  and  love  for  his  work?  " 

There  is  another  phase  of  classwork 
which  does  not,  as  a  rule,  get  its  true  val- 
uation: that  is,  the  work  assigned  to  be 
done  outside  the  class  by  the  boy  himself. 
It  is  evident,  no  amount  of  precept  for  an 
hour  a  day  will  counterbalance  the  force 
of  habit  acquired  in  the  other  hours.  The 
pressure  brought  to  bear  on  both  teacher 
and  pupil  to  produce  ' '  the  tale  of  bricks, ' ' 
forces  good,  square,  honest  study  out  of 
the  market.  The  boy  will  gather  his 
**  straw  "  anywhere  and  everj^where  from 
the  handiest  source — friendly  teachers, 
companions,  or  even  on  the  sly  from  an- 


174    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

other's  stock.  A  friend  of  mine,  wlio  was 
a  great  stickler  for  all  the  work  perfectly, 
done,  received  a  Greek  exercise  one  day, 
beautifully  and  on  the  whole  correctly 
written,  but  the  last  sentence  consisted  of 
another  boy's  name  written  in  Greek  char- 
acters. Even  this  incident  failed  to  con- 
vince the  teacher  that  he  himself  was  the 
one  most  in  error.  The  daily  habit  of 
facing  work  to  be  done  with  no  help  except 
what  his  own  master  has  given  him,  and 
the  doing  his  best  on  that  work,  is  half,  if 
not  all,  the  battle  for  a  teacher  to  win  in 
behalf  of  the  child.  By  constantly  keep- 
ing that  before  the  young,  and  by  skilful 
arrangement  of  the  work  to  be  prepared, 
and  by  following  up  and  exposing  all  the 
crutches  that  the  lame  ones  will  seize,  the 
pupil  himself  soon  learns  to  appreciate 
the  power  that  he  is  gaining,  and  a  strong 
spirit  of  self-help  will  take  possession  of 
a  class.  If  there  is  one  thing  that  appeals 
to  the  best  side  of  a  boy,  it  is  his  ambition 
not  to  be  a  lame  player  or  a  quitter  or  a 
sneak.  Young  people  need  to  have  their 
sense  of  honor  as  well  as  their  desire  for 
work  to  be  diligently  trained.  The  ideal 
which  each  boy  has  in  his  mind,  if  we  are 


THE  CLASS  175 

to  judge  by  the  standards  tliey  invariably 
apply  to  their  elders,  is  strong  enough  and 
fairly  clear;  the  task  of  the  teacher  is  to 
train  the  child  in  the  application  of  this 
standard  to  himself.  The  man  who  allows 
those  under  his  direction  to  form  the  habit 
of  doing  their  outside  work  by  any  method 
but  that  which  is  most  conducive  to  their 
advancement  in  power  to  work  and  think, 
is  manifestly  not  doing  his  full  duty.  It 
would  be  just  as  wise  for  a  doctor  to  pre- 
scribe his  medicines  without  making  any 
real  effort  to  get  at  the  seat  of  the  trouble 
in  the  daily  life  of  his  patient,  and  to  see 
that  his  remedies  were  conscientiously 
used. 

Encourage  a  child,  therefore,  to  come 
to  class  with  his  work  done  by  himself  as 
well  as  he  is  able ;  then  he  will  be  keen  to 
discover  his  mistakes  and  to  note  their  cor- 
rection. He  will  be  learning  not  only  how 
to  work,  but  learning  the  kind  of  child  he 
actually  is,  and  also  that  other  inestimable 
lesson  of  standing  squarely  on  his  own 
work.  When  a  child  needs  outside  help,  his 
teacher  should  be  the  first  to  know  it  and 
to  offer  the  help.  "  Prevention  is  better 
than  cure;"  it  is  better  as  a  rule  to  give 


176    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

the  necessary  help  before  class  and  accus- 
tom the  boy  to  come  prepared,  than  to 
allow  him  to  waste  his  time  and  then  pun- 
ish him  afterwards.  There  are,  however, 
instances  of  inattention  that  are  better  to 
punish  by  refusing  further  help  and  allow- 
ing the  boy  to  suffer  for  a  day  or  more 
while  he  flounders  in  darkness.  Some- 
times nothing  is  so  good  for  the  careless 
child  playing  on  the  edge  of  thin  ice  as 
to  allow  him  to  fall  in,  and  to  know  him- 
self temporarily  out  of  the  game  and  at 
length  dependent  for  his  life  on  taking  ^ 
firm  hold  of  the  proffered  stick.  The  sort 
of  boy  that  needs  outside  help  needs 
mostly  to  be  shown  how  to  study,  and 
sometimes  requires  to  be  made  to  study. 
Of  all  boys,  this  one  needs  the  personal 
supervision  of  his  teacher.  If  the  garden- 
er's apprentice  is  lazy  and  slovenly  in  his 
work,  he  would  never  learn  as  simple  a 
thing  as  sticking  at  his  own  row  till  it  was 
clear  of  weeds,  root  and  vine,  unless  at 
times  the  gardener  came  and  worked  be- 
side him.  Perhaps  it  is  not  more  direction 
which  he  needs,  but  just  the  influence  of  a 
little  personal  fellowship.  It  is  no  use  say- 
ing to  him,  "  Unless  you  learn  to  work, 


THE  CLASS  177 

you  will  starve."  Let  tlie  starving  proc- 
ess be  at  once  judiciously  yoked  with  the 
fellowship.  To  the  discouraged  or  lazy 
and  obstinate  boy,  if  we  wish  to  make  him 
a  hopeful,  energetic,  and  amenable  man, 
we  shall  not  say,  "  Go  and  do  that  work," 
but  we  shall  rather  say,  ''  Come  and  let 
us  do  this  work."  See  that  the  work  is 
done  and  that  the  boy,  as  far  as  in  him  lies, 
does  it  himself. 

A  friend  of  mine,  a  man  who  had  much 
experience  on  certain  lines  of  work  in  the 
business  world,  said:  "  I  shall  not  send 
my  boy  to  college.  I  want  him  to  know 
not  books,  but  men  and  things;  and  this 
knowledge  he  will  get  to  more  advantage 
by  dealing  directly  with  men  and  things." 
Such  a  conclusion  is  perfectly  justified 
from  the  results  of  school  and  college  on 
many  men;  boys  do  not  learn  "  men  and 
things  ";  and,  putting  it  on  a  business 
basis,  that  is  what  they  go  to  school  and 
college  for,  if  we  may  insert  three  words, 
so  as  to  make  the  phrase  read,  "  to  work 
with  men  and  things."  School  and  college 
may  be  called  the  grammar  of  "  men  and 
things."  Now,  to  teach  boys  any  subject, 
it  is  generally  admitted  that  ''  dealing  di- 


178    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

rectly  "  with  the  subject  in  what  is  called 
the  "  natural  method  "  is  the  best  way,  if 
the  teacher  is  a  good  teacher,  and  has  the 
opportunity  to  give  his  undivided  atten- 
tion to  one  or  two  boys  at  a  time.    In  other 
words,  principles  and  rules  derived  by  the 
child    himself    from    concrete    experience 
stand    him    in    better    stead    than    the 
same    principles    and    rules    learned    out 
of  a  book.    Although  this  may  be  the  best 
way  to  learn  a  subject,  still  this  method 
may  be  employed  to  the  complete  extinc- 
tion of  the  faculty  of  the  imagination  and 
of  faith,  and  so  defeat  one  of  the  main 
objects  of  all  true  education.     Moreover, 
such  a  thoroughly  deductive  method  is  not 
practical  in  classes.     Good  teachers  will 
always  use  this  method  as  far  as  circum- 
stances allow,  in  verifying  the  grammars 
which  represent  the  condensed  learning  of 
many    generations    put    into    convenient 
form   for    transmission.     Even    the   best 
teachers  with  the  most  interested  children 
would  find  their  grammars  to  some  degree 
indispensable.  For  teaching  classes,  there- 
fore, the  grammar  method  must  prevail; 
and  yet  the  grammar  must  constantly  be 
shown  to  be  alive:  that  is,  the  true  work 


THE  CLASS  179 

of  ''  men  and  tilings,"  a  sort  of  a  handy 
compendium  of  work  done  and  still  doing; 
an  introduction  as  well  as  an  incentive  to 
direct  contact  with  the  life  itself.  Looked 
at  in  this  way,  the  school  and  the  college 
are  the  places  for  learning  the  true  princi- 
ples and  rules  of  life  as  being  worked  out 
by  ''  men  "  in  the  great  realm  of 
*'  things." 

England  is  a  fair  example  of  what  may 
be  accomplished  in  the  world  by  a  nation 
whose  method  of  education  and  whose 
method  of  government  have  been  con- 
ducted throughout  on  an  established  order, 
constantly  applied,  to  the  everchanging 
circumstances  of  men  and  things,  and, 
therefore,  constantly  tested  and  modified 
by  facts. 


IX 

CLASSWOEK 

WHEN  we  descend  from  these  broad 
applications  to  the  teacher  and  his 
class,  and  we  ask  ourselves,  What  are 
the  best  studies  to  give  the  young  and 
what  are  the  best  ways  of  presenting  these 
studies?  we  are  getting  to  the  point  that 
must  interest  every  teacher.  No  doubt, 
language  is  the  study  which  prepares  us 
best  for  knowing  men.  The  way  a  man 
thinks  is  the  thing  we  wish  to  know  for 
ourselves  and  to  teach  the  child,  in  order 
that  he  may  think  in  the  best  jDossible  way ; 
and  language  is  the  path  of  man 's  thinking. 
The  English  language,  therefore,  is  the 
first  and  principal  study  of  the  child.  The 
best  method  of  teaching  a  child  to  think  in 
the  use  of  his  own  language  will  be  partly 
determined  by  the  conditions  of  his  life, 
whether  in  his  surroundings  he  hears  cor- 
rect or  incorrect  English.  The  child  learns 
to  talk  entirely  by  what  we  call  the  ' '  nat- 

180 


CLASSWORK  181 

ural  method  ";  his  wants  will  seek  ex- 
pression, and  he  catches  the  expression 
largely  through  the  power  of  mimicry 
and  memory,  with  reason  in  almost 
total  abeyance.  The  number  of  impres- 
sions that  the  child  is  storing  up  in  its 
earlier  years  is  not  often  appreciated  by 
the  elder.  Memory  is  at  its  best,  and  then 
it  is  that  memory  should  be  wisely  used  to 
stock  the  mind  with  the  most  beautiful 
thoughts  conveyed  by  the  words  of  our  na- 
tive tongue.  As  the  reason  dawns,  the  con- 
struction of  the  language  may  be  gradually 
brought  in.  But  grammar,  as  a  study  in 
itself,  seems  to  me  to  be  much  more  effec- 
tually taught  in  the  Latin  for  those  who 
are  to  study  Latin.  For  mental  drill,  a 
so-called  dead .  language  is  better  than  a 
modern  language,  chiefly  because  of  its 
greater  abundance  and  regularity  of  in- 
flections; and  quite  truly,  also,  because  it 
is  a  dead  language,  and  has  no  market 
value.  A  boy  talking  to  his  father  about 
his  studies  in  college,  said,  "  I  am  going 
to  drop  Latin  and  take  only  those  studies 
which  will  help  me  in  law."  His  father 
replied :  * '  Then  you  had  much  better  come 
to  the  oJSice  at  once.    I  can  teach  you  more 


182    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

law  in  a  month,  than  you  will  learn  in  a 
year  at  college.  No,  indeed!  you  are  not 
going  to  college  for  law,  you  are  going 
for  yourself;  to  learn  how  to  think,  to 
learn  how  other  men  have  thought,  and  to 
take  a  wider  look  at  life  for  your  own 
profit  and  happiness  "; — good  and  sound 
advice,  coming  from  a  man  who  knew  what 
he  was  talking  about.  Many  men  of  that 
kind  of  sound  sense  in  this  land  bring  their 
boys  to  school,  and  say,  ''  Here  I  am,  a 
slave  to  business;  but  I  want  my  son  to 
have  an  education  and  to  be  somebody 
when  he  grows  up!  "  Let  us  be  assured 
that  the  best  men  of  the  land,  educated  or 
uneducated,  are  with  us  in  all  our  efforts 
to  teach  children  to  think,  not  only  as  our 
fathers  thought,  but,  if  possible,  to  "go 
one  better. ' ' 

We  seem  to  have  digressed  from  our 
consideration  of  the  English  class;  yet 
let  us  hope  that  this  digression  bears  dis- 
tinctly on  the  subject  of  teaching  English 
in  a  class.  Our  language  is  so  full  of 
beautiful  literature  suitable  for  children 
that  I  should  turn  the  English  class  largely 
into  the  practice  of  reading  and  other  ex- 
ercises suggested  by  the  reading,  rather 


CLASSWORK  183 

than  on  the  practice  of  grammar.  To  hear 
some  of  our  college  boys  read  and  speak 
one  would  think  that  English  was  not  their 
mother  tongue.  The  carelessness  in  the 
use  of  their  own  language  is  but  an  index 
of  their  general  carelessness  in  thought. 
Eight  here,  therefore,  in  speaking,  writing, 
and  reading  English  does  the  battle  begin. 
The  child  having  conquered  the  first  diffi- 
culties of  reading,  let  us  choose  carefully 
as  the  centre  of  our  work  in  the  class  an 
interesting  and  well-written  book,  either 
one  of  the  many  readers  suited  to  the  ages 
of  our  pupils,  or  some  standard  book.  If 
the  latter,  care  should  be  taken  to  handle 
the  book  quite  differently  from  the  way  in 
which  we  handle  the  ordinary  school-book. 
It  seems  to  me  wiser  never  to  put  the 
standard  authors  which  one  wishes  to  lead 
the  children  to  read  and  discover  for  them- 
selves, never  to  put  such  authors  into 
school  binding  to  be  kept  on  the  same  shelf 
with  other  school  books.  It  is  hard  enough 
to  treat  Virgil  and  Horace  in  that  way.  The 
child  will  take  his  cue  from  the  master ;  he 
does  not  easily  forget  the  tender  hand  and 
friendly  manner  with  which  his  teacher 
took  his   Scott  or  his   Shakespeare   into 


184    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

class,  and  neither  will  he  forget  the  beauty 
of  the  unexpected  passage  as  read  by  a 
true  lover;  it  will  act  as  a  challenge  for 
him  to  discover  this  author  for  himself. 
The  higher  flights  of  the  mind  are  in  se- 
cret, and  spontaneous;  the  teacher's  prov- 
ince is  humbly  to  point  the  way,  by  going 
there  himself  alone,  and  decoying  his  little 
ones  to  explore  for  themselves  these  new 
and  ever- widening  fields.  Let  a  whole- 
some dread  be  upon  him  of  vulgarizing 
these  fine  spiritual  things  to  the  level  of 
the  grammar  and  the  blackboard.  In  any 
case,  such  books  to  be  used  for  a  reading 
exercise  should  be  put  into  the  boy's  hand 
only  in  the  classroom,  and  not  be  carried 
to  the  schoolroom  desk. 

"  John,  do  you  begin  with  Chapter  I." 
Then  let  John  have  full  swing  till  he  has 
finished  a  certain  portion.  For  purposes 
of  correction,  sometimes,  the  last  sentence 
read  again  by  the  teacher  reproducing  tone 
of  voice,  colloquial  pronunciation,  and  any 
other  peculiarities  or  mistakes,  will  have 
a  good  effect  in  bringing  home  to  a  boy  his 
inefficiency.  Or,  *'  Who  noticed  a  mis- 
take? "  Thus,  one  by  one,  hunting  out  the 
errors  made  in  the  passage,  at  the  same 


CLASSWORK  185 

time  testing  tlie  attention  of  each  boy,  this 
exercise  is  made  tlie  occasion  of  teaching 
care  not  only  in  reading  tlie  printed  word, 
but  also  in  the  use  of  the  voice  and  in 
intelligent  expression.  Let  the  teacher, 
from  time  to  time,  read  aloud  himself  that 
he  may  set  a  standard  of  accurate  and  de- 
sirable reading  to  the  class.  One  may  see 
in  such  an  exercise  a  wide  field  for  teach- 
ing all  manner  of  things,  as  well  as  for 
cultivating  a  proper  taste  in  the  choice  of 
books. 

Say  that  this  reading  exercise  has  pro- 
ceeded for  about  half  an  hour ;  ' '  now  close 
your  books  ";  and  then  quickly  examine 
the  class  on  the  spelling  of  any  words 
which  you  may  choose  from  the  text,  keep- 
ing some  one  at  the  board  to  write  a  list  of 
the  words  misspelled;  this  list  should  be 
copied  by  each  child  in  a  special  note-book, 
and  learned  as  a  spelling  lesson  for  the 
next  recitation.  Such  practice  trains  him 
to  observe  the  spelling  of  words  while  he 
reads,  just  as  the  oral  spelling  lesson  is 
important  to  train  the  ear  and  the  enuncia- 
tion. Or  else,  ' '  Now  we  shall  have  fifteen 
minutes  in  which  to  write  rapidlj^  what 
you  can  remember  of  the  reading."    It  is 


186    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

very  important  to  train  younger  children 
at  school  in  the  art  of  putting  down  on 
paper  rapidly  what  they  have  in  their 
minds;  and  to  this  end  I  should  always 
have  such  writing  done  in  the  class  under 
the  master's  eye,  that  he  may  keep  them 
at  work,  and  occasionally,  by  demonstra- 
tion on  the  board,  show  them  how  first  to 
outline  their  subject  and  so  arrange  their 
paragraphs.  Dictation  exercises,  gradu- 
ally leading  in  higher  forms  to  practice  in 
taking  notes,  all  to  be  carefully  reviewed 
out  of  class  and  presented  at  a  following 
recitation,  are  the  very  best  incentives  to 
concentrated  and  rapid  thought  and  to  ac- 
curate expression.  Nothing  should  be 
given  for  outside  preparation  that  would 
offer  an  excuse  for  wasting  time,  or  say- 
ing, '*  I  didn't  know  how."  All  first  cop- 
ies of  work  should  be  corrected  by  the 
child  himself,  and  then  written  in  a  book 
to  be  presented  fresh  and  clear  for  the 
master's  inspection.  Too  great  stress  can- 
not be  laid  upon  the  careful  personal  cor- 
rection of  such  second  copies  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  boy  himself,  requiring  him 
either  to  rewrite  or  to  make  good  every 
error,  adding  all  misspelled  words  to  his 


CLASSWORK  187 

own  list  to  be  learned.  From  the  earliest 
years  such  original  work,  based  on  read- 
ing in  class,  should  be  varied  by  calling 
occasionally  for  short  compositions  on  all 
manner  of  subjects  either  set  by  the  mas- 
ter or  chosen  by  the  boy.  Whole  hours 
should  be  given  to  the  hearing  of  composi- 
tions read  by  their  composers,  from  which 
sentences  here  and  there  should  be  chosen 
to  be  written  on  the  board  for  analj^sis,  if 
the  class  has  begun  Latin,  or  the  study  of 
any  grammar.  When  a  class  enters  the 
room,  a  sentence  on  the  blackboard  copied 
from  an  unknown  composition,  orthog- 
raphy and  all,  gives  a  man  a  great  chance 
to  rivet  attention  on  certain  kinds  of 
errors,  and  forms  an  excellent  exercise  in 
analysis  and  reconstruction  and  general 
grammar  work.  Grammar  note-books  I 
have  found  helpful.  Let  me  note  here  that 
the  assigning  of  analysis  of  sentences,  or 
of  correcting  sentences  outside  class,  is  a 
wretched  practice,  not  only  because  chil- 
dren learn  very  little  in  that  way  of  how 
to  construct  or  write  a  sentence,  but  most 
of  those  whom  one  especially  wishes  to 
work  will  not  do  it  for  themselves,  but 
simply  get  "  pointers  "  from  the  brighter 


188    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

boys  or  kindly  elders,  who,  from  lack  of 
time,  answer  their  idle  question  in  the 
most  direct  way.  If  there  is  no  convenient 
work  to  assign  for  a  preparation  hour, 
give  as  a  lesson  a  page  of  good  prose  or 
poetry  to  be  copied;  this  is  an  excellent 
English  exercise  for  the  younger  children. 
However,  if  a  teacher  realizes  the  necessity 
of  stocking  the  child's  mind  with  high 
thoughts  and  noble  forms  of  expression, 
there  will  be  a  constant  training  in  learn- 
ing and  reciting  memoriter  from  great 
authors  in  prose  and  poetry. 

Another  exercise  in  the  classroom  which 
may  be  used  in  connection  with  the  read- 
ing is  to  require  different  members  of  a 
class  to  give  orally  the  substance  of  dif- 
ferent paragraphs,  concluding  each  such 
effort  with  a  kindly  criticism.  Great  in- 
terest may  be  aroused  by  these  oral  eif  orts 
which  may  be  branched  oif  into  discussions 
with  all  the  rules  of  parliamentary  order. 
As  children  get  older,  set  debates  with  ap- 
pointed speakers  make  a  delightful  change, 
and  give  a  teacher  much  chance  for  very 
helpful  work. 

The  English  class  in  a  school  should  be 
the  one  above  all  others  looked  forward  to 


CLASS  WORK  189 

witli  pleasure.  Every  hour's  work  may 
be  so  varied  as  to  keep  alive  attention  and 
interest.  If  a  teacher  realizes  that  what 
he  is  after  for  his  i:>upils  is  to  promote 
their  power  in  thought  and  love  of  work  by 
putting  into  them  high  thoughts  and  by 
teaching  them  the  power  to  express  these 
thoughts  in  fitting  language,  he  will  for- 
sake the  grammar  drill  for  reading,  writ- 
ing, and  speaking.  I  venture  to  say  that  all 
those  who  have  attained  success,  and  so 
joy  in  their  use  of  the  English  language, 
would  agree  that  they  had  not  learned  it 
from  the  English  Grammar,  but  that  they 
had  learned  it  by  absorbing  the  spirit  and 
style  of  great  English  writers  and  by  pa- 
tient practice  in  the  art  of  writing  and 
speaking.  The  grammar,  no  doubt,  is 
necessary,  but  it  comes  best  through 
imitation  and  incidentally,  as  has  been 
sketched  above.  The  speech  and  pen  of 
the  average  child  trained  on  the  English 
Grammar  seems  to  me  proof  conclusive  of 
its  poverty  in  the  true  elements  of  mental 
training,  as  well  as  of  its  failure  to  teach 
English.  It  requires  the  more  mature 
mind  to  grasp  and  to  benefit  by  the  science 
of  Grammar. 


190    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

One  is  tempted  to  go  beyond  limit  in 
discussing  the  Englisli  class  with  all  its 
possibilities  to  promote  fine  thought  and 
helpful  work;  these  suggestions,  how- 
ever, may  be  of  use  to  younger  teach- 
ers as  lines  on  which  to  form  their  own 
methods. 

The  history  and  geography  classes  also 
should  be  full  of  interest  under  a  live 
teacher,  and  should  act  as  adjuncts  to  the 
English  class.  By  the  aid  of  maps  and 
wise  notice  of  passing  events,  both  of  these 
studies  can  be  made  very  stimulating  to 
observation  and  thought,  and  afford  ample 
incentive  for  expression.  Boys  should  be 
encouraged  to  give  vivid  descriptions  of 
places  and  events,  both  in  writing  and 
speaking.  Here  again  short  essays  are 
in  order,  especially  from  those  who  have 
themselves  seen  places  or  events  of  inter- 
est, to  be  read  before  the  whole  class ;  while 
a  young  artist  should  be  utilized  to  draw 
map  outlines  on  the  board,  in  preparation 
for  use  in  quizzing  the  class  on  names  of 
places.  The  eye  and  the  ear  must  both 
bear  their  due  share  of  the  work  in  receiv- 
ing impressions  to  memorize,  as  matter  for 
the  reason  and  the  imagination. 


CLASSWORK  191 

Many  cliildren  miss  a  great  part  of  tlie 
benefit  to  be  derived  from  mathematics  be- 
cause they  begin  wrong.  They  are  not 
made  to  acquire  thoroughly  their  tables, 
nor  practised  sufficiently  in  simple  mental 
arithmetic.  A  boy,  or  more  often  a  girl, 
will  say, ''  I  can't  do  arithmetic  ";  but  the 
teacher  will  soon  find  the  difficulty  to  be  a 
simple  distaste  for  the  work  necessary  to 
get  things  done  accurately,  bred  largely 
through  early  neglect.  I  have  had  hun- 
dreds of  children  to  teach  mathematics, 
and  I  have  yet  to  find  one  not  able  to  do 
arithmetic,  algebra,  and  geometry.  Drill 
them  well  in  mental  arithmetic  at  every 
stage  on  all  the  different  kinds  of  prob- 
lems reduced  to  the  simple  cases,  and  the 
power  to  solve  the  harder  ones  will  come 
in  due  order  under  a  teacher  who  will 
study  each  child  and  set  himself  to  remedy 
his  defects. 

"I  do  not  understand  that  problem, 
sir." 

'*  Have  you  read  it  over  carefully?  " 

**  Yes,  sir." 

*'  Read  it  again." 

Several  mistakes  will  probably  be  made 
in  the  reading.     Therefore,   require  the 


192    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

problem  to  be  read  again  and  again 
till  the  boy  has  corrected  his  own  mis- 
takes. 

"■  Now,  what  do  you  not  understand 
about  that  problem?  " 

"  I  don't  understand  anything  at  all 
about  it." 

"  Why,  that  is  odd;  it  is  very  simple 
English.  Read  the  first  sentence.  ...  Do 
you  understand  that  ?  ' ' 

"  Yes,  sir." 

''  Then  you  do  understand  something; 
tell  me  in  your  own  words  what  that  sen- 
tence means.  .  .  .  Very  good.  Now  read 
the  next  sentence.  ...  Do  you  understand 
what  that  means'?  .  .  .  Yes!  Now  what  are 
you  asked  to  find  in  that  problem?  .  .  . 
Yes,  that  is  right :  what  must  you  know  in 
order  to  find  that  ?  .  .  .  Yes !  Do  you  know 
that,  or  does  the  problem  tell  you!  .  .  . 
Yes,  that  is  right ;  so  what  do  you  do  with 
this  fact  in  order  to  obtain  that?  "  .  .  . 
And  so  on,  till  you  have  convinced  the  boy 
either  that  he  has  the  knowledge  and  the 
power  to  do  the  problem,  or  as  to  just 
where  he  is  wanting.  Other  boys  brought 
into  the  discussion,  with  certain  estab- 
lished results  put  plainly  on  the  board, 


CLASSWORK  193 

tend  to  make  this  Socratic  method 
interesting  and  helpful  to  the  whole 
class. 

The  problem  is  the  goal,  and  all  pro- 
ficiency in  figuring  should  constantly  be 
brought  to  the  test  of  usefulness  in  the 
solution  of  problems.  When  the  funda- 
mental arithmetical  problems  in  fractions 
have  been  mastered,  it  is  easy  to  show  how 
much  more  readily  the  same  problems  can 
be  solved  by  using  a  letter,  such  as  X,  for 
the  unit  and  then  writing  the  problem  in 
the  fonn  of  an  equation.  A  boy  soon 
learns  with  proper  leading  how  to  express 
the  relations  of  various  quantities  in  this 
way,  and,  to  my  mind,  there  is  no  better 
mental  training  than  this  in  order  to  ac- 
quire facility  in  dealing  with  the  atfairs 
of  life.  The  power  to  see  the  true  rela- 
tions of  things,  and  to  express  those  rela- 
tions, is  true  wisdom.  The  beginning  and 
end  of  preparatory  algebra  is  the  equa- 
tion ;  and  all  the  dilTerent  processes  should 
be  taught  simply  as  aids  to  solving  equa- 
tions; and  the  equation  should  be  taught 
simply  as  a  means  for  solving  problems. 
It  always  gives  an  added  appetite  to  the 
boy  for  his  work  if  he  can  be  led  to  see 


194    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

its  practical  bearing  on  tlie  business  of 
manhood. 

*'  I  know  it,  but  I  can't  say  it  "  should 
never  pass  unnoticed.  Insist  on  correct 
use  of  language  in  accurate  definition  and 
stating  of  principle.  The  English  vocabu- 
lary is  not  to  be  curtailed  simply  because 
certain  words  are  used  inaccurately.  We 
are  so  pressed  to  finish  the  tale  of  ex- 
amples necessary  to  produce  for  an  exam- 
ination on  which  there  are  no  principles 
called  for  and  few,  if  any,  problems  that 
the  teacher  in  mathematics  is  tempted  to 
drive  desperately  on  and  to  cut  out  all  but 
the  everlasting  ''  tom-tom  "  of  mere  fig- 
ures only  to  find  that  in  the  end  all  his  pa- 
tient labor  is  liable  to  go  for  nothing.  Un- 
less a  boy  is  taught  to  say  plainly  and  cor- 
rectly what  is  in  his  mind,  the  chances 
are  that  what  he  has  there  will  evaporate. 
To  this  end  great  care  should  be  taken  to 
train  would-be  mathematicians  in  the  use 
of  their  own  language.  When  called  upon 
to  give  a  demonstration,  especially  in 
geometry,  a  boy  should  never  be  inter- 
rupted by  the  teacher  or  by  his  fellows, 
so  that  he  may  have  full  swing  to  go  his 
own  way.     Meanwhile,    the   whole   class 


CLASS  WORK  195 

should  be  kept  on  tlie  watch,  and,  while 
they  give  respectful  and  quiet  attention, 
required  to  note  mistakes  to  be  corrected 
when  the  demonstration  has  been  com- 
pleted. A  teacher  has  his  own  powers,  he 
has  a  text-book,  he  has  a  subject,  and  he 
has  perhaps  fifteen  or  twenty  boys  before 
him,  each  with  different  degrees  and  kinds 
of  perception.  He  will  therefore  in  mathe- 
matics, as  in  any  other  class,  use  all  these 
different  things  in  all  possible  combina- 
tions to  keep  his  class  awake  and  to  reach 
each  individual  from  all  i:)ossible  points  of 
vantage.  So  much  may  be  accomplished 
by  a  careful  study  of  all  these  forces  in 
order  to  play  brightly  and  freshly  new 
chords  of  harmony.  A  teacher  in  mathe- 
matics soon  settles  down  to  his  own  way, 
if  he  is  not  careful,  so  that  after  his  chil- 
dren get  used  to  him,  there  is  nothing  new 
or  bright  in  his  class,  a  state  of  things 
much  to  be  deplored  for  all  concerned. 

Before  the  child  comes  to  Latin,  free- 
hand drawing  seems  to  me  to  be  one  of 
the  very  best  subjects  for  class-work.  T 
have  seen  a  practical  man  with  a  grasp 
of  the  object  of  the  work  keep  a  room  full 
of  one  hundred  young  boys  interested  and 


196    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

busy  for  a  half -hour  daily.  The  class  was 
divided  into  two  or  three  divisions,  and 
by  means  of  models  at  different  parts  of 
the  room,  and  a  blackboard  on  which  the 
master  demonstrated  how  to  go  about  the 
work,  and  on  which  also  he  set  the  exer- 
cises for  the  beginners,  every  boy  had  a 
chance  to  learn  the  rudiments  of  drawing 
and  to  go  on  also  to  work  designed  to  give 
scope  to  special  genius.  This  practical  ap- 
plication by  the  hand  of  what  is  observed 
by  the  eye  goes  much  further  than  the 
mere  training  of  proficiency  in  handling  a 
pencil;  it  is  an  excellent  mental  drill  for 
all  young  children,  and  personally  I  am 
amazed  that  some  schools  have  so  far 
given  in  to  the  examination  grind  for  col- 
lege as  to  omit  drawing  from  their  sched- 
ules. Edward  Thring  puts  it  down  as 
among  the  necessary  subjects  of  class- 
work. 

My  own  observation  leads  me  not  only 
to  endorse  this  idea,  but  to  go  even  still 
further  and  to  bewail  the  general  failure 
in  most  of  our  schools  to  have  any  regu- 
lar instruction  in  art.  An  artist  who  is 
an  artist  at  heart  and  loves  children, 
though  he  fail  to  produce  marketable  work 


CLASSWORK  197 

himself,  would  fill  a  place  in  our  schools 
wliicli  we  would  soon  come  to  consider  in- 
dispensable to  a  general  education.  Un- 
told good  would  be  accomplished  for  all 
that  artistic  class  of  children  whose  minds 
need  such  an  outlet  to  wake  them  up  to  the 
joy  of  work,  besides  the  benefit  to  the 
whole  school  in  having  true  standards  in 
art  constantly  to  the  fore. 

Manual  training  also  has  the  same  im- 
portance in  the  application  of  hand  to 
brain  and  eye,  and  it  also  serves  as  a  mind- 
opener  to  some  boys  who  have  a  special 
gift  that  way.  These  facts  are  becoming 
widely  recognized  by  educators  all  over 
the  land.  The  danger  is  that  their  educa- 
tional value  should  be  lost  in  the  con- 
sideration of  their  value  in  the  money 
market. 

Laboratory  work  for  older  boys  who  can 
really  appreciate  its  value  seems  to  be 
about  the  starting-point  for  one  who  is  to 
look  more  to  scientific  than  to  classical 
training.  But  for  the  young  it  is  worse 
than  waste  of  time,  for  it  becomes  a  mere 
idle  satisfying  of  curiosity.  Unless  all 
this  kind  of  laboratory  work  is  producing 
food  for   thought  and  requiring  careful 


198    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

study  and  hard  mental  work,  it  is  plainly 
a  mistake. 

Modern  languages  seem  now  to  be  hav- 
ing their  day ;  yet,  in  the  first  place,  owing 
to  their  construction,  and,  in  the  second 
place,  owing  to  their  market  value,  they 
cannot  stand  with  either  Latin  or  Greek 
as  subjects  for  a  mental  drill  in  class.  Do 
not  let  fond  mothers  think  that  Jimmie 
will  ever  learn  to  speak  fluently  French 
or  German  in  the  ordinary  school  class. 
If  it  were  possible  under  our  present  sys- 
tem, it  would  still  be  a  waste  of  time.  The 
picking  up  of  the  speech  of  a  modern  lan- 
guage requires  very  little  but  verbal  imi- 
tation and  memory,  and  does  not  provoke 
much  thought  and  reason  or  give  ground 
for  hard  class-work.  The  grammar  as 
taught  by  reading,  writing,  and  recitation, 
and  the  study  of  forms,  should  provide  the 
main  object  of  study.  All  that  one  can 
hope  or  even  desire  from  the  class  study 
of  French  and  German  is  a  facility  in  cor- 
rect reading  and  translating.  Tliis  ac- 
quired not  only  opens  vast  fields  of  litera- 
ture, but  gives  one  the  power  to  pick  up 
more  easily  the  speech  if  the  occasion 
should  arise.    The  class  drill,  however,  is 


CLASSWORK  199 

tKe  main  thing,  and  this  is  brought  about 
in  the  same  way  as  drill  in  Latin  or  Greek. 

Let  us  note  here  that  Greek,  owing  to 
its  greater  range  of  flexibility,  seems  at 
this  age  a  little  too  much  for  the  ordinary 
boy,  a  little  too  much  of  the  same  kind  of 
thing  that  he  gets  to  more  advantage  in 
Latin.  I  confess  that,  for  my  own  part,  the 
shades  of  distinction  in  meaning  in  the 
use  of  the  Greek  moods  and  particles  were 
not  always  clear,  not  from  want  of  study, 
but  from  want  of  power  to  see  the  delicate 
distinctions  apparently  clear  to  the  Greek 
mind.  But,  for  all  that,  I  would  not  ex- 
change my  drill  in  Greek  grammar,  and 
the  vision  of  the  Greek  world  through  its 
poets  and  teachers,  and  the  power  to  read 
the  New  Testament  in  the  original, — I 
would  not  exchange  these  things  for  what 
I  could  have  gotten  at  school  from  the 
German  language  and  literature,  Greek 
not  learned  at  school  is  seldom,  if  ever, 
learned  afterward,  whereas  a  modern  lan- 
guage may  be  fairly  mastered,  grammar 
and  all,  as  the  pastime  of  a  year  abroad, 
if  there  is  the  Latin  training  at  the  bottom. 

It  is,  however,  ludicrous  for  a  boy  with 
little  or  no  aptitude  for  language  to  at- 


200    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

tempt  to  get  any  useful  knowledge  or 
training  from  three  or  four  languages  all 
going  on  at  once.  It  certainly  is  an  ad- 
vance in  education  to  be  able  to  adapt  the 
amount  of  language  study  to  the  evident 
capabilities  of  the  boy. 

Now  and  then  one  presents  himself  at 
our  schools  who  is  apparently  unable  to 
get  anything  from  the  study  of  Latin. 
These  cases,  however,  are  very  rare;  if  a 
boy  can  learn  anything  in  the  way  of  lan- 
guage, it  is  my  experience  that  he  can 
learn  enough  Latin  to  read  the  school 
classics ;  and  for  such  a  boy  the  discipline 
of  the  task  is  undeniably  beneficial.  How 
he  hates  those  endings !  Did  it  ever  occur 
to  you,  my  fellow-teacher,  that  the  boy's 
salvation  dejoended  on  the  pronunciation 
of  the  last  syllable?  Not  at  a  suggestion 
from  you,  but  of  his  own  accord,  the  full 
and  perfect  articulation  of  every  syllable 
of  a  word  to  the  very  last.  I  confidently 
maintain  that  a  boy  taught  to  articulate 
his  Latin  words  perfectly  to  the  last  syl- 
lable is  in  a  fair  way  to  attain  to  full 
perfection  at  his  own  last  end.  One  of 
the  main  advantages,  as  we  have  noted  be- 
fore, in  using  an  unspoken  language  for 


CLASSWORK  201 

training  purposes,  consists  in  the  number 
of  its  inflected  forms;  these  are  especially 
noticeable  in  the  final  syllables.  There- 
fore, the  intelligent  observation  of  all 
these  changes  requires  an  intelligent  enun- 
ciation.   This  requires  work. 

By  all  means,  let  there  be  real  down- 
right work,  things  to  be  learned  and  re- 
membered; but  let  there  be  a  careful  se- 
lection of  such  things.  To  quote  again 
from  Thring's  *'  Theory  and  Practice  of 
Teaching  ":  *'  There  is  a  grand  capacity 
in  the  youthful  memory  of  accumulating 
with  little  effort  mere  sounds,  without 
understanding.  This  prescribes  that  the 
most  useful  drudgery  should  be  got 
through  early.  And  it  may  fairly  be  said 
that  if  under  present  circumstances  this 
was  interpreted  to  mean  that  an  absolutely 
infallible  accuracy  of  declensions  and  con- 
jugations was  acquired,  years  of  after-toil 
would  be  saved,  and  in  many  instances  life- 
long incapacity  be  turned  into  healthy 
activity  of  mind.  No  tongue  can  tell 
the  hopeless  state  of  muddle  which  is 
produced  by  scrambling  into  the  word- 
quagmire  without  a  single  bit  of  solid 
knowledge  to  rest  the  sole  of  th^  foot  on. 


^02    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

Nature,  therefore,  in  giving  the  yonng  a 
youthful  memory  lays  down  its  own  laws, 
if  any  one  would  heed  them.  First,  fill  the 
great  receptacle  with  everything  that  in- 
spirits and  interests,  all  treasures  of  me- 
lodious verse,  all  thrilling  narrative  of 
daring  deeds,  all  simple  pathos  of  touch- 
ing endurance,  mingled  with  the  weird, 
wild  truths  of  the  wonders  of  the  animal 
and  physical  world.  And,  secondly,  all 
drudgery  necessary  to  be  known,  which  is 
not  better  learned  in  the  practising  it, 
word-forms,  and  everything  belonging  to 
word-forms  and  their  meaning,  may  well 
be  stored  up  at  once.  But  rules  and  tech- 
nical terms  should  be  avoided  as  much  as 
possible.  They  pass  for  understanding 
without  being  understood;  and  not  unfre- 
quently  are  the  cause  of  all  entanglements 
of  after-years;  when  the  stock  names  are 
answered  to  the  stock  questions ;  and  often- 
times neither  teacher  nor  learner  has  the 
least  idea  of  the  real  purport  of  the  words 
they  use  so  glibly.  It  is  easy  to  learn 
books  of  rules,  and  never  apply  them.  It 
is  easy  to  answer  them  correctly  and  be 
quite  ignorant  why  the  answer  is  correct. 
Rules  are  the  refuge  of  the  brainless;  and 


CLASSWORK  203 

the  instrument  of  those  who  have  to  pro- 
duce some  show  without  the  time  or  ma- 
chinery necessary  for  true  work." 

Such  remarks  are  a  fitting  introduction 
to  the  Latin  class.  Fortunately  our  mod- 
ern text-books  for  beginners  in  Latin  are 
of  the  same  mind,  and,  in  a  very  skilful 
way,  work  in  the  forms  to  be  memorized 
with  their  practical  application.  If  the 
text-book  does  not  supply  a  little  reading 
lesson,  I  should  manufacture  one  out  of 
the  simple  forms  at  hand,  in  order  to  give 
zest  to  the  mere  drilling  in  forms  and  sen- 
tence construction.  The  more  interesting 
such  a  little  chapter  might  be,  the  better; 
some  short  forms  putting  into  Latin  the 
occurrences  of  the  school,  frequently  used 
in  a  playful  way,  make  the  whole  thing 
more  human  and  enlist  interest.  As  soon 
as  reading  has  fairly  begun,  the  composi- 
tion work  should  be  on  sentences  formed 
from  the  reading  lesson  of  the  day.  This 
may  now  be  found  in  special  text-books, 
though  personally  I  prefer  to  give  my  own 
sentences.  Such  a  practice  enables  a 
teacher  to  lighten  up  parts  of  the  advance 
lesson,  by  giving  the  English,  though  with 
some  change  of  tense  or  construction,  to 


204    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

difficult  passages  in  the  text.  In  other 
words,  he  gives  the  English  to  be  turned 
into  Latin  in  such  a  way  as  not  only  to 
be  an  aid  to  the  thinking  boy  in  working 
out  his  translation,  but  in  such  a  way  as 
to  promote  thought  and  impress  certain 
forms  of  construction  on  the  mind. 

Let  us  sketch  the  work  of  a  class  in 
Latin  or  Greek. 

The  well-aired,  the  well-lighted,  and  or- 
derly room,  plenty  of  blackboard  space, 
and  a  cheery  teacher  are  all  taken  for 
granted.  First,  the  review  sentences  in 
composition  are  rapidly  recited,  the  mas- 
ter giving  the  English,  and  the  boy  the 
Latin  or  the  Greek,  as  the  case  may  be. 
These  should  have  been  so  well  learned 
as  to  require  no  prompting  or  hesitation, 
and  to  consume  not  more  than  three  min- 
utes. That  is  something  the  boy  must  be 
made  to  do  outside  class :  familiarity  with 
the  sound  of  properly  constructed  sen- 
tences is  a  necessity  for  first-rate  work. 
In  the  second  place,  the  advance  sen- 
tences are  called  for,  written  on  the 
board  and  corrected,  while  each  boy 
follows  on  his  own  exercise  and  makes  his 
own  corrections.    Here  is  one  good  chance 


CLASSWORK  205 

for  grammar  questions.  These  exercises, 
written  in  ink  outside  class,  and  corrected 
with  pencil  in  class,  should  be  handed  in, 
looked  over  or  not  as  the  teacher  has  op- 
portunity, and  returned  in  time  to  be 
copied  in  correct  form  in  a  book  and 
learned  before  the  next  recitation.  Of 
course,  with  beginners,  this,  with  recita- 
tion of  paradigms,  constitutes  the  chief 
work  of  the  hour,  and  the  reading  lesson 
is  a  sort  of  reward.  But  for  those  em- 
barked on  Caesar's  expeditions  or  more 
advanced  reading,  the  whole  composition 
exercise  should  be  finished  in  ten  minutes, 
and  then  the  review  reading  lesson  should 
be  rapidly  translated  by  one  or  two  boys 
into  fair  English ;  hesitation  in  this  should 
not  be  tolerated;  the  perfection  of  the  re- 
view is  something  to  which  every  boy  can 
approximate,  and  he  ought  to  be  made  to 
do  it.  Two  or  three  minutes  in  class  is 
enough  to  hear  the  review  properly  read. 
Then  follows  the  careful  construing  of  the 
advance,  the  Latin  order  being  maintained, 
so  far  as  possible,  both  for  convenience 
and  for  teaching  a  boy  readiness  in  get- 
ting out  his  own  translation.  When  the 
Latin  order  becomes  natural  to  a  boy,  the 


206    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

terrors  of  translation  have  largely  van- 
ished. Grammar  questions  in  order  to 
light  up  the  text,  or  information  elicited 
about  allusions  to  passing  events  or  myth- 
ical history,  are  all  a  necessary  part  of  this 
drill  on  the  advance;  but  the  one  point 
for  the  teacher  is  to  press  and  teach  the 
*'  necessity  "  and  the  ''  how  "  of  plain, 
straight  thinking  on  the  part  of  every 
member  of  his  class.  Inattentive,  sleepy 
boys  will  be  roused  by  questions  and  board 
work;  the  best  scholars  will  be  given  a 
chance  to  show  their  proficiency  by  sug- 
gesting better  translations,  and  every 
boy's  recitation  should  be  closed  by  the 
master's  reading  of  the  passage  in  the  best 
English  at  his  command,  while  the  mem- 
bers of  the  class  should  be  encouraged  to 
make  notes  of  and  to  reproduce  in  the  re- 
view these  felicitous  translations.  While 
this  oral  translation  is  going  on,  the  black- 
boards should  be  covered  by  written  trans- 
lations, so  that  every  hoy  shall  be  kept  as 
busy  as  possible.  If  there  is  time  at  the 
«nd  of  the  lesson,  comments  should  be 
called  for  on  these  written  translations. 
No  boy  should  escape  his  share  of  the 
hour's  work;  and  the  skill  of  the  teacher  is 


CLASSWORK  207 

shown  in  his  power  to  awaken  the  ambi- 
tion of  the  dullest,  while  he  gives  play  to 
the  ambition  of  the  brightest.  One  of  the 
noticeable  things  in  the  class  of  a  success- 
ful teacher  is  the  way  in  which  the  quick 
and  the  slow  are  trained  to  help  one  an- 
other and  to  appreciate  one  another.  The 
so-called  stupid  boy  has  always  got 
something  to  give  to  the  genius,  and  a 
class  can  be  made  to  see  that  real  abil- 
ity after  all  is  the  faculty  of  patient 
application. 

Perhaps  the  most  notable  advance  made 
in  teaching  for  the  last  twenty-five  years 
has  been  in  Geometry,  The  total  abandon- 
ment of  Euclid  has  been  followed  by  a 
•steady  movement  toward  greater  freedom 
in  demanding  more  original  work.  The 
mere  sketches  of  propositions,  and  the 
multiplicity  of  exercises,  have  stimulated 
thought  and  reason.  Now  it  is  impossi- 
ble for  a  boy  to  make  too  much  use  of  his 
memory.  The  remark  made  by  the  pro- 
fessor to  a  high-stand  man  in  my  class  at 
college  after  a  perfect  demonstration, 
could  not  be  made  in  these  days :  ' '  Mr. 
A.,  you  remind  me  of  an  old  goat  I  saw 
in  the  campus  this  morning  eating  a  copy 


208    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

of  Euclid.  Eeally,  all  of  that  must  rest 
very  heavily  on  your  mind. ' ' 

Class-work,  let  us  repeat,  has  two  main 
objects  in  view:  first,  to  prepare  a  child 
to  work  alone;  and,  second,  to  prepare  a 
child  to  work  in  concert,  that  he  may  learn 
how  to  use  his  own  powers  without  looking 
for  a  helping  hand,  and  that  he  may  learn 
to  use  those  powers  in  connection  with  and 
in  behalf  of  his  fellows. 

To  the  lover  of  the  young,  no  work  will 
give  greater  satisfaction  than  class-work. 
Year  by  year  we  go  back  perhaps  to  the 
same  old  hackneyed  subject,  but  still  ever 
new,  because  the  ever-changing  boy,  with 
all  his  possibilities  for  good  and  evil,  for 
advance  and  for  waste,  is  our  subject;  and 
to  handle  a  class  so  as  to  bring  each  boy 
to  his  best  is  a  task  large  enough  for  any 
man.  The  failures  but  give  sweetness  to 
the  successes,  and  the  close  contact  with 
surging  life  keeps  one's  sensibilities  alive 
and  his  heart  young.  "  Failures  "  and 
''  successes  "!  What  do  we  know  about 
them?  It  is  the  "working  with  God '^ 
that  brings  to  us  some  small  share  of  His 
love  and  wisdom  and  breeds  in  us  that 
faith  which  leaves  results  to  Him. 


X 

EXAMINATIONS 

''TTJOYS!      They    are    spoiling    your 

JD  girls." 

We  are  growing  old;  it  is  a  sure  sign  of 
this  sad  fact  when  our  memories  persist- 
ently keep  travelling  back  to  the  days  of 
our  youth.  In  this  case,  however,  there  is 
some  excuse;  for  what  man  who  ever  sat 
as  a  boy  before  that  sometimes  grotesque 
and  always  lovable  man,  Dr.  Hudson  of 
Shakespeare  fame,  could  forget  either  his 
words  or  his  fignire?  "  If  I  cannot  make 
them  laugh  with  me,  I  shall  make  them 
laugh  at  me,"  he  would  say  in  justification 
of  his  extravagancies  in  expression  and 
gesture.  And  when  he  stopped  amid  a 
very  fireworks  of  invective  against  exami- 
nations, and  opened  and  shut  his  almost 
toothless  cavern  of  a  mouth  in  solemn 
mockery,  and  then  delivered  himself  of  the 
above  remark,  you  may  be  sure  that  every 

309 


210    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

boy  in  the  room  was  ready  to  endorse  any- 
thing and  everything  that  followed.  A 
**  dressing  down  "  of  the  examination  sys- 
tem is  sure  to  find  ready  sympathy  from 
the  boy,  and  the  little  rnse  to  hold  us  was 
hardly  necessary.  "  Our  girls?  "  Yes, 
and  ourselves,  too.  We  were  quite  ready 
to  cry  "  good  "  to  every  hard  word  against 
the  system. 

It  is  now  thirty  years  ago  since  that 
evening  in  June  when  three  hundred  or 
more  boys  and  men  hung  in  rapt  atten- 
tion while  we  listened  to  this  talk  on 
*'  Beading,"  and  I  venture  to  say  that 
hardly  one  has  forgotten  the  occasion  and 
the  substance  of  the  remarks.  His  thesis 
was  that  education  was  growth,  which,  to 
be  healthy,  must  be  more  or  less  spon- 
taneous. We  grow  most  when  we  are  en- 
joying ourselves  most,  when  we  are  ab- 
sorbed in  some  game  or  book,  carried  along 
almost  without  exertion  of  will;  hence  the 
tremendous  influence  on  mental  growth 
and  on  the  growth  of  character  exerted  by 
the  books  we  read  for  pleasure.  Eecite 
growth?  Examine  growth?  All  exami- 
nations and  recitations  at  once  became  al- 
most absurd  in  our  eyes.    The  old  gentle- 


EXAMIxNATIONS  211 

man  then  went  on  to  show  in  a  most  mas- 
terful way,  masterful  enough  for  any  au- 
dience, the  false  standards  of  education 
that  were  set  up  by  the  tendency  to  resort 
to  frequent  examinations.  This  was  all, 
however,  by  the  way,  and  was  only  to  make 
clear  to  us  the  great  importance  in  our 
lives  of  the  things  we  chose  to  do  of  our 
own  sweet  wills.  Weeks  of  toil  over  our 
grammars  and  text-books  seemed  to  leave 
us  pretty  much  where  we  were  at  the  be- 
ginning, while  one  hour  with  the  book  of 
our  choice  seemed  to  make  us  new  and  to 
open  our  eyes  to  a  new  world. 

While  the  drudgery  and  the  work  are  nec- 
essary to  give  one  the  power  of  absorbing 
the  life  of  the  book,  and  necessary  also  to 
shape  the  tools  by  which  the  life  may  be 
used,  yet  how  true  this  is,  and  what  a 
danger  for  the  teacher  to  fall  into  the  pit 
of  examinations  and  recitations !  It  is  no 
excuse  for  a  man  to  say  "  I  must  get  my 
boys  into  college,"  and  so  put  the  blame 
on  the  University.  It  would  be  just  as 
wise  for  a  man  in  his  own  household  to 
draw  regiilarly  on  his  capital  for  his  din- 
ner with  the  excuse  that  he  must  have  his 
dinner.     Indeed  it  would  be  nearer  the 


212    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

truth  to  say  that  the  teacher  who  delib- 
erately made  it  his  profession  to  prepare 
his  children  to  pass  examinations  was  liv- 
ing not  on  his  own,  but  on  somebody  else's 
capital.  The  man  that  dwarfs  the  power 
of  growth  in  his  charges  and  weakens  their 
own  power  of  initiative,  is  more  than  an 
unwise  teacher;  he  is  robbing  them  to  a 
degree  of  their  capital,  that  germ  of  life 
which  grows  of  itself,  and  that  broad  heri- 
tage of  the  world  to  which  every  man  has 
his  natural  claim.  Whereas  his  daily  and 
hourly  work  is  to  teach  them  how  to  grow, 
and  to  use  to  the  best  advantage  what  is 
already  theirs  by  inheritance — this  is  edu- 
cation; the  other  is  driving  oxen  to  the 
fair  grounds  to  be  ranked  by  some  fashion 
of  the  day. 

Let  us  put  these  two  questions  frankly 
to  ourselves  in  the  light  of  our  own  pro- 
fession. First,  are  we  ready  to  assert  that, 
even  with  all  our  modern  breadth  of  cur- 
riculum, we  have  yet  exactly  hit  the  true 
measure  of  a  man  in  fulfilment  of  the 
image  in  which  he  is  made?  We  have 
but  to  look  around  us  in  the  work-a-day 
world  to  see  the  failures  of  high-stand  men 
and  the  successes  of  duffers,  and  to  force 


EXAMINATIONS  213 

from  every  fair-minded  teacher  an  em- 
phatic ^'  No."  By  failures,  we  mean  men 
who  do  not  fit  in  to  make  the  world  a 
better  place  to  live  in.  The  discrepancy  in 
the  ranks  between  those  of  the  examina- 
tions of  the  schools  and  those  of  later  life 
are  not  all  due  to  premature  develop- 
ment. But  such  discrepancy  emphatically 
means  that  the  examinations  of  the  schools 
are  not  true  measures  of  the  youth  or  of 
their  growth.  It  happened  that  but  a  few 
hours  before  penning  these  words  the 
writer  was  occupied  in  marking  a  set  of 
examination  papers:  A  was  marked  one 
hundred,  not  a  mistake  or  a  slip  in  a  fairly 
hard  paper  on  percentage  and  interest. 
B  received  forty-five.  Now  A  stands  be- 
fore me,  with  small  head  and  eyes  and  low 
forehead,  perfectly  delighted  at  his  suc- 
cess; B,  with  a  twinkle  of  amusement  in 
his  large  blue  eyes,  with  a  beautiful  clear 
skin  and  splendid  head  with  high  forehead, 
shrugs  his  shoulders  and  supposes  that  he 
had  "  got  everj'thing  all  mixed  up."  He 
comes  nearer  the  truth  than  he  knows :  im- 
pressions have  come  to  his  high-stning 
soul  so  fast  that  there  seems  to  be  no  room 
for  this   tiresome  profit  and  loss:  he  is 


214    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

all  ^'  mixed  up  "  because  lie  is  so  full  of  a 
great  diversity:  nothing  as  yet  has  begun 
to  take  definite  shape :  the  world  and  him- 
self in  it  are  great  and  amusing  puzzles. 
Then  comes  the  driver  with  his  grammar 
or  his  rule  of  percentage,  and  in  his  fever- 
ish desire  to  get  the  boy  ready  for  an  ex- 
amination, spoils  the  whole  of  his  beautiful 
kaleidoscope  by  trying  to  turn  it  at  once 
into  a  microscope,  or,  better  still,  into  a 
telescope  where  the  child  stands  at  the  big 
end  while  the  small  end  is  completely  filled 
by  his  master  and  his  percentage, — they 
look  so  small  and  so  far  away.  As  I  gaze 
into  the  eyes  of  that  high-souled  child,  with 
the  simple  sight  that  is  mine  by  nature,  I 
feel  humbled  at  my  bungling  methods,  and 
wonder  how  I  could  have  dared  to  talk  to 
him  at  all  about  examination  marks  and 
percentages. 

And,  moreover,  owing  to  the  limited 
area  covered  by  a  written  examination, 
and  to  the  elimination  of  the  personal  fac- 
tor, only  certain  limited  amounts  of  tech- 
nical knowledge  can  be  displayed,  and  no 
real  estimate  of  the  Jww  of  a  child's  at- 
tainment can  be  reached;  and  the  hoiv, 
after  all,  is  the  main  thing  in  the  process 


EXAMINATIOxNS  215 

of  education.  The  acquirement  of  habits 
of  independent  thought,  of  application,  of 
insight,  and  of  expression  are  vastly  more 
important  than  the  mere  readiness  to  an- 
swer questions  put  by  another. 

The  second  question  suggested  is  this : — 
Does  not  the  frequent  examination  with  its 
passing  mark  of  fifty  or  sixty  tend  quietly 
to  produce  a  false  standard  of  work  as  well 
as  a  false  estimate  of  work?  The  writer 
remembers  a  time  when  the  only  accepted 
standard  in  his  school  was,  ''  Are  you  do- 
ing your  best?  "  Examinations  came  but 
once  or  twice  a  year,  and  the  marks  were 
so  lost  sight  of  in  the  general  standing  that 
there  seldom  was  any  question  of  a  pass- 
ing mark.  The  school  was  full  of  customs 
and  traditions  that  exalted  'the  scholar  as 
well  as  of  traditions  against  squeezing  out 
the  failures.  ''  The  best  you  can  do  "  was 
ever  on  the  lips  of  our  leader  both  in  pri- 
vate and  public,  with  great  patience  for 
those  who  were  slow  in  going  on  "  from 
strength  to  strength."  As  I  now  look  back 
upon  it,  growth  was  the  aim  and  object 
of  it  all.  ''  AVhat  is  to  be  gained  by  drop- 
ping John?  You  say  that  he  knows  his 
work  as  well  as  he  is  likely  to,  but  that 


216    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

he  is  so  inaccurate  that  he  cannot  get 
through  the  examination.  Accuracy  will 
not  come  through  repetition  of  work 
known  well  enough  to  be  stale,  but  rather 
through  new  work  more  likely  to  arouse 
the  interest :  you  must  be  patient  and  love 
him  and  try  and  get  him  to  be  more  accu- 
rate. Let  him  work  a  little  in  your  study; 
your  mere  presence  will  give  him  encour- 
agement and  help  him  to  keep  his  attention 
fixed."  We  have  heard  something  like 
this  from  men  who  have  proved  themselves 
great  educators. 

Further,  let  it  be  said,  the  best  work 
is  not  done  under  a  rod  of  any  kind, 
whether  it  be  a  birch  or  the  fear  of 
failure  in  an  examination.  "  Oh,  that  I 
had  been  made  to  work !  "  is  the  righteous 
complaint  of  the  man  who  has  been  al- 
lowed to  idle  away  his  youth.  Yet,  in  the 
process  of  making  there  is  always  the 
danger  of  marring.  What  makes  one, 
mars  another.  Make  him  study?  Yes. 
But  this  can  be  generally  avoided  and  al- 
ways included  by  making  him  want  to 
study. 

Thring  has  some  spicy  words  on  the  use 
and  abuse  of  examination  which  he  sums 


EXAMINATIONS  217 

up  thus :  ' '  'Examinations  are  very  efficient 
for  judging  neglect  or  idleness;  are  also 
efficient  in  a  very  few  well-defined  in- 
stances in  determining  a  certain  kind  of 
merit,  but  they  break  down  utterly  from 
many  reasons  over  a  wider  field.  They  are 
also  most  fascinating  exercises  of  power  to 
those  who  believe  in  them.  If  memory, 
rules,  and  neatly  packed  knowledge  make 
men,  up  with  the  flag,  enlist  our  workers 
under  the  banner  of  Examinations. 

"  But  if  education  and  training  are  the 
true  aim  of  mankind,  and  power  in  man's 
self  the  prize  of  life,  then  no  superstition 
ever  ate  into  a  healthy  national  organism 
more  fatal  than  the  cult  of  the  Examiner. 
Better  in  its  degree  the  negro  bowing  down 
before  the  ghastliest  fetich,  than  the  civil- 
ized Mumbo-jumboism  which  thinks  it  can 
award  over  a  whole  kingdom  the  palm  of 
mind.  Examinations  in  that  case  are  but 
another  name  for  death  to  originality,  and 
all  improvement  that  is  original." 

Let  us  repeat :  the  problem  is  to  win  the 
boy,  and  in  such  a  way  as  not  to  spoil  the 
ideals  or  the  spontaneous  efforts  of  others 
already  won.  The  levelling  up  of  the 
**  duifer  "  is  no  excuse  for  the  levelling 


218    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

down  of  the  "  scholar."  The  cutting  off 
of  the  liberty  of  a  teacher  filled  with  love 
for  his  subject  and  his  children  in  order 
to  bring  all  his  scholars  under  the  hammer, 
is  a  grave  mistake.  For  forming  scholar- 
ship, for  educating  children,  no  system, 
however  perfect,  can  take  the  place  of  the 
teacher,  and  every  system  should  tend  not 
to  lighten  the  responsibility,  but  to  give 
further  weight  to  the  responsibility  of 
^  every  teacher  for  every  child. 

On  the  other  hand,  examinations  have 
a  legitimate  place  in  the  process  of  educa- 
tion, if  it  is  understood  that  they  are 
rather  one  of  the  steps  in  education  than 
a  measure  of  growth.  Colleges  must  have 
entrance  examinations;  and  schools  must 
have  examinations;  both  as  definite  tasks 
to  be  accomplished  and  as  aids  to  teachers 
in  determining  the  ability  of  children  to 
go  on  to  advanced  courses.  It  is  an  im- 
portant thing  for  a  child  to  learn  to  have 
some  tangible  results  of  its  work  at  its 
fingers'  end,  and  so  well  tabulated  as  to 
pass  an  examination  on  whatever  can  be 
embraced  in  a  paper.  Also  it  is  a  great 
matter  for  a  child  to  learn  to  do  its  best 
under  trial.    Though  it  is  true  that  some  of 


EXAMINATIONS  219 

the  finest  scholars  have  confessed  to  a 
panic  even  at  the  sight  of  an  examination 
paper,  and  though  we  must  admit  that 
such  panic  arises  often  from  the  extreme 
sensitiveness  and  shrinking  modesty  of 
such  high-strung  natures,  still,  in  the  main, 
it  is  a  weakness  to  be  overcome.  The 
power  to  do  one's  best  at  an  examination 
is  a  good  thing  in  itself,  and  a  thing  to  be 
cultivated  in  the  process  of  education. 

This,  then,  seems  to  be  the  place  of  the 
examination  in  the  school:  not  so  much 
a  measure  of  advance  in  education,  but  as 
part  of  the  whole  mental  training,  and  to 
be  used  by  the  teacher  not  as  the  final  ap- 
peal of  efficiency,  but  only  as  an  important 
factor  in  that  appeal. 

To  this  end  the  custom  of  averaging  an 
examination  mark  with  the  daily  marks  is 
a  good  thing.  In  marking  papers,  every 
teacher  has  experienced  the  difficulty  of 
doing  justly.  Certain  classes  of  mistakes 
are  a  particular  bugbear  to  certain  men, 
and  it  is  quite  possible  that  their  mark- 
ing of  a  paper  would  be  so  hard  on  a  par- 
ticular boy  or  class  of  boys  as  to  defeat 
the  whole  end  of  the  examination  and  to 
discourage   excellent   hard-working  boys. 


220    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

Again,  every  man  who  lias  had  experience 
in  this  unpleasant  duty  knows  how  varia- 
ble his  own  marks  will  be  for  the  same  mis- 
take in  different  papers  or  at  different 
periods  of  his  own  digestion.    It  is  truly 
laughable  to  hear  a  body  of  masters  in  a 
school  laying  down  the  law  about  accuracy, 
and  sagely  talking  about  the  results  to  fall 
upon  the  head  of  the  luckless  chap  who  has 
received  fifty-nine  for  an  examination,  and 
the  congratulations   due  to   another  who 
has  received  sixty.    One  is  sometimes  re- 
minded of  the  fact  that  even  Roman  civili- 
zation had  arrived  at  the  point  where  two 
examiners  could  not  meet  without  laughter. 
Perhaps  we  take  ourselves  and  our  work 
more  seriously, — I  hope  we  do;  but  still 
it  is  my  experience  that  careful  review  of 
any  set  of  marks  for  an  examination  re- 
veals a  number  of  inconsistencies  and  in- 
accuracies that  for  a  layman  would  vitiate 
the  whole  result.    It  is  perfectly  evident  to 
this  plain  layman  that  if  justice  is  to  be 
done  to  those  boys  who  find  examinations 
difficult,  their  papers  should  go  through 
the  hands  of  several  men.    If  the  system  is 
used  at  all  as  an  aid  in  determining  the 
proficiency  of  a  scholar  on  any  piece  of 


EXAMINATIONS  221 

work,  it  ought  to  have  a  fair  and  just 
application.  After  having  carefully  re- 
viewed the  papers  and  marking  of  a  cer- 
tain form,  I  sent  four  of  the  papers  to  four 
different  men  in  different  parts  of  the 
Eastern  States,  all  men  of  long  experience 
in  marking  examination  paj^ers,  and  in 
every  case  the  marks  assigned  were  much 
higher  than  those  given  by  men  of  less  ex- 
perience in  that  particular  science  of 
marking.  The  layman's  rating  of  a  paper 
is  more  likely  to  approach  that  of  the  sci- 
entific marker  than  that  of  the  teacher  who 
always  has  his  pet  mistakes  to  watch  for 
and  does  not  easily  throw  off  his  role  as 
teacher  in  favor  of  that  as  examiner. 

A  i^rofessional  man,  a  teacher  who  can- 
not get  out  of  his  rut  and  stand  with  the 
layman  on  the  roadside  for  a  look,  is  not 
only  liable  to  lose  some  of  his  load,  but  to 
get  tired  himself,  and  to  be  run  over  by  the 
march  of  live  men  and  women  who  are  now 
thronging  our  tracks.  Every  one  of  us 
must  be  able  to  get  a  fair  look  at  the  child 
himself,  and  absolutely  refuse  to  measure 
him  by  any  standard  which  we  do  not  ap- 
ply to  ourselves,  or  his  work  by  any  stand- 
ard but  that  of  absolute  justice.    No  child 


222    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

ought  to  be  dropped  from  a  class  or  made 
to  go  over  old  work  unless  by  a  consensus 
of  the  opinions  of  all  his  teachers.  And  it 
does  seem  as  if  the  Universities  might  al- 
ways give  due  weight  to  such  an  opinion 
when  delivered  in  writing  along  with  a 
boy's  examinations  for  entrance.  The  per- 
sistent consideration  of  the  individual  is 
always  hard,  the  hardest  part  of  the 
teacher's  work,  especially  when  brought 
into  connection  with  the  written  results  of 
an  examination;  and  yet  such  considera- 
tion must  always  stand  as  one  of  the  dis- 
tinctive marks  of  a  good  school  and  of  a 
good  teacher. 

In  pursuance  of  this  idea,  in  connection 
with  the  subject  of  examinations,  the  old- 
fashioned  ''  orals  "  were  not  lightly  to  be 
esteemed.  One  such  examination  in  the 
middle  of  the  winter  term  is  of  unique 
advantage  in  many  ways,  not  the  least  of 
which  is  the  examination  of  the  teacher 
and  his  methods  by  trustees,  visiting 
alumni,  and  brother  teachers.  A  well- 
planned  oral  examination,  where  every 
boy  has  a  chance  to  write  as  well  as  to 
recite,  is  not  only  suggestive  of  the  general 
results  of  a  teacher's  work  for  a  class  in 


EXAMINATIONS  223 

manners  and  mind,  but  it  is  also  an  occa- 
sion where  every  boy  is  brought  in  his  per- 
sonality face  to  face  with  a  body  of  inter- 
ested lay  elders.  These  occasions,  in  my 
own  experience,  used  to  furnish  the  very 
thing  that  was  necessary  to  enable  a  just 
measure  to  be  dealt  to  the  individual 
through  the  results  of  written  examina- 
tions. Moreover,  the  benefit  to  the  school 
at  large  accruing  by  the  visitation  of  so 
many  "  reverend  and  grave  seniors  "  was 
greatly  enhanced  by  the  chance  that  we  all 
had  to  hear  good  and  sometimes  great 
speakers.  This  style  of  examination,  how- 
ever, does  not  appeal  to  the  business  meth- 
ods of  the  day;  it  is  thought  too  cumber- 
some, too  much  trouble  for  the  results  im- 
mediately tangible. 

Let  it  be  written  in  letters  of  fire — 
sooner  or  later  it  will  be  burned  into  the 
teacher's  heart — that  in  our  profession 
there  are  no  short-cuts,  except  the  cutting 
of  red  tape.  Life  is  trained,  educated,  led 
out,  only  by  the  spending  of  life;  edu- 
cation proceeds  in  direct  and  compound 
proportion  as  the  life  of  the  teacher  is 
worth  giving  and  as  he  gives  it  through 
toil  and  devotion. 


224    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

A  great  educator,  one  of  whose  texts 
was,  ''  Examine  yourself,"  wrote  to  his 
pupils,  "  Yea,  gladly  will  I  spend  and  be 
spent  for  you,  though  the  more  I  love  you, 
the  less  I  be  loved." 


XI 

EELIGIOIT   IN   THE   SCHOOL 

TO  put  it  concisely,  religion  in  the 
school  begins  and  ends  with  religion 
in  the  teacher ;  begins  with  the  teacher,  be- 
cause no  child  can  get  a  true  conception  of 
religion  if  his  elders  show  him  a  false  one ; 
and  ends  with  the  teacher,  because  no 
amount  of  technically  correct  teaching  or 
worship  in  the  school  can  have  a  healthy 
effect  on  the  child  if  it  does  not  manifestly 
go  to  mould  the  heart  and  will  of  the 
teacher.  This,  after  all,  is  but  circmnlocu- 
tion  for  the  plain  statement  that  religious 
men  and  women  in  a  school  are  more  im- 
portant than  religious  forms,  and  cere- 
monies. 

The  whole  question  seems  to  turn  on 
the  teacher's  attitude  toward  the  cliild  and 
toward  his  profession.  If  we  ourselves  do 
not  believe  in  the  sacredness  of  our  call- 
ing, and,  as  the  way  opens,  are  not  ready 

225 


226    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

to  give  our  whole  life  to  it,  we  have  made 
a  grave  mistake.  We  have  no  right  to 
experiment  with  the  roots  of  the  lives  of 
our  fellows.  To  play  with  stocks  and 
bonds,  to  scratch  the  soil,  to  buy  and  sell, 
may  not  work  serious  harm  to  our  fellow- 
men,  that  is,  harm  which  does  not  tend  to 
right  itself ;  but  to  teach  for  hire  or  merely 
for  amusement  is  really  a  dreadful  and 
insidious  crime.  The  criminal  may  go  on 
his  way  undetected,  but  the  generation  to 
come  is  sure  to  reap  from  these  seeds  of 
selfishness  a  harvest  of  all  sorts  of  poi- 
soned weeds. 

Religion  in  school,  therefore,  begins  with 
religion  in  the  teacher.  And  the  real  test 
of  religion  in  the  teacher  is  his  attitude 
toward  the  child. 

What  is  the  attitude  that  the  Christian 
teacher  should  assume  toward  every  child? 
We  have  suggested  the  answer  to  that 
question  in  former  papers ;  suffice  it,  there- 
fore, to  say  here  briefly,  "  that  attitude 
from  which  the  teacher  sees  in  the  child 
the  desire  for  perfection  and  which  con- 
strains the  teacher  to  continual  effort  to 
bring  that  desire  to  a  measure  of  fulfil- 
ment."   Let  us  add,  in  this  paper  on  reli- 


RELIGION  IN  THE  SCHOOL       227 

gion,  **  that  attitude  from  wliich  the 
teacher  sees  the  child  as  the  child  of 
God. ' '  Such  an  attitude  on  the  part  of  its 
teachers  will  make  any  school  a  kind  of  re- 
ligious school  and  one  from  which  no  child 
could  go  away  unimproved.  The  begin- 
nings of  all  conversions  to  God  grow  in 
such  an  atmosphere.  Yet  if  they  are  to  go 
on  to  perfection,  if  the  child's  will  is  to  be 
finally  won,  in  spite  of  failure,  to  rest  in 
the  strength  and  love  of  God,  there  must  be 
some  definite  objective  picture  firmly  fixed 
in  mind  and  heart.  Sad  experience  has 
taught  us  that  even  the  contemplation  of 
the  life  of  a  good  and  holy  mother  without 
definite  teaching  and  training  in  methods 
of  thought  and  action  is  utterly  futile  to 
make  a  religious  man  out  of  a  simply  nat- 
urally good  boy.  Of  course  we  mean  by 
a  religious  man  one  who  is  trying  to  do 
the  will  of  God  in  the  world  and  sustained 
by  his  faith  in  God. 

Nature  may  go  a  long  way  on  the  reli- 
gious road  if  there  are  always  in  sight 
those  who  have  filled  their  nature  with 
something  additional.  If  history  has 
proved  anything,  it  has  proved  over  and 
over  again  that  unassisted  nature  cannot 


228    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

find  God,  but,  on  the  contrary,  tends  to 
degenerate  and  get  farther  from  Him. 
There  are,  it  is  true,  a  longing  for  God 
and  a  predisposition  to  accept  reasonable 
proofs  of  His  existence  and  of  His  power 
to  lift  man  higher.  But  every  great 
movement  in  religion  has  arisen  from 
what  we  call  a  revelation. 

In  such  an  article  as  this  we  are  not  at- 
tempting to  do  more  than  deal  with  this 
vital  subject  in  a  way  to  produce  some 
practical  results  for  the  teacher.  It  is 
merely,  therefore,  from  the  standpoint  of 
a  teacher  that  we  remark  that  those  who 
deny  such  a  revelation  as  a  necessity  in 
religion  and  consider  that  what  we  call 
the  "  natural  man  "  is  sufficient  in  himself 
to  evolve  all  the  religion  that  he  needs, 
that  such  philosophers  either  are  giving 
meanings  to  the  words  ''  objective  "  and 
*'  revelation  "  which  are  too  refined  for  the 
average  mind,  or  that  they  do  not  make 
sufficient  account  of  the  fact  that  they 
themselves  are  the  direct  outcome,  men- 
tally and  spiritually,  of  long  ages  of  what 
we  shall  call  objective  teaching  and  the 
belief  in  a  revelation. 

It  seems  to  me  that  Newman's  argu- 


RELIGION  IN  THE  SCHOOL       229 

ments  on  revealed  and  natural  religion  are 
peculiarly  convincing,  to  those  of  us  who 
have  spent  our  lives  trying  to  teach,  and 
that  they  enforce  with  unerring  clearness 
the  necessity  for  teaching  revelation  as  an 
objective  fact  to  be  grasped  by  the  intel- 
lect. How  simple  and  how  true  is  the  fol- 
lowing from  the  Apologia!  In  speaking 
of  the  Church,  he  writes:  ''  She  has  it  in 
charge  to  rescue  human  nature  from  its 
misery,  but  not  simply  by  restoring  it  to 
its  own  level,  but  by  lifting  it  up  to  a 
higher  level  than  its  own.  .  .  ,  Such  truths 
as  these  she  vigorously  reiterates  and  per- 
tinaciously inflicts  upon  mankind;  as  to 
such  she  observes  no  half-measures,  no 
economical  reserve,  no  delicacy  or  pru- 
dence ;  '  ye  must  be  bom  again, '  is  the 
simple,  direct  form  of  words  which  she 
uses  after  her  Divine  Master; '  your  whole 
nature  must  be  reborn;  your  passions 
and  your  affections  and  your  aims  and 
your  conscience  and  your  will  must  all  be 
bathed  in  a  new  element  and  reconsecrated 
to  your  Master,  and,  the  last  not  the  least, 
your  intellect.'  " 

In  another  place  he  says:  ''  Christianity 
is  simply  an  addition  to  nature ;  it  does  not 


230    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

supersede  or  contradict  it;  it  recognizes 
and  depends  on  it,  and  that  of  necessity; 
for  how  possibly  can  it  prove  its  claims  ex- 
cept by  an  appeal  to  what  men  already 
have?  " 

Therefore,  in  the  school  let  there  be, 
first,  that  which  is  natural;  then,  that 
which  is  spiritual. 

First,  that  which  is  natural.  As  there 
can  be  no  true  religion  in  a  school  where 
its  teachers  are  not  religious  men  and 
women,  so  let  it  be  thoroughly  understood 
that  there  can  be  no  true  religion  where 
the  daily  life  of  the  place  is  not  so  ordered 
as  to  teach  truth,  good  fellowship,  and  re- 
spect for  authority.  These  fundamentals, 
wrought  happily  into  the  life  of  the  whole 
family,  are  easy  to  teach  and  easier  to  neg- 
lect in  a  great  company  of  boys:  easy  to 
teach,  for  the  chances  for  their  display  are 
lurking  in  every  feature  of  the  life  of  such 
a  community;  and  easier  to  neglect,  for 
the  strain  of  maintaining  high  standards 
among  the  young,  who  are  ever  ready  and 
persistent  in  going  the  shortest  and  easiest 
way,  is  a  great  weariness  to  the  teacher, 
and  presents  a  strong  temptation  to  be 
satisfied  with  mediocre  results  and  greater 


RELIGION  IN  THE  SCHOOL       231 

peace.  Thus  far  day  schools  and  boarding 
schools  stand  on  common  ground.  And 
there  is  one  other  factor  in  this  common 
religious  ground,  in  which  the  high  schools 
are  far  ahead  of  anything  yet  developed 
in  the  boarding  school:  that  is,  the  im- 
portant factor  of  fellowship;  not  the  ex- 
clusive fellowship  which  is  too  apt  to  grow 
up  among  boys  in  our  expensive  boarding 
schools,  but  a  fellowship  which  ought  to 
be  the  heritage  of  every  boy  and  girl  in 
this  great  democracy,  a  fellowship  for  all 
sorts  and  conditions  of  men.  No  phase  of 
modern  education  can  be  more  unhappy 
for  the  individual  or  more  dangerous  for 
the  Republic  than  that  which  produces  the 
kind  of  snob  that  is  sometimes  said  to  be 
the  product  of  our  boarding  schools.  What 
shall  we  do  to  make  the  boy  of  wealth  and 
refinement  know  his  place  in  God's  world? 
Missionary  work,  whether  in  summer 
camps  or  settlements,  only  makes  matters 
worse,  unless  there  is  the  very  wisest  guid- 
ance. Patronage  toward  the  less  fortu- 
nate is  worse  than  neglect. 

From  one  end  of  the  school  to  the  other 
let  the  influence  of  some  strong  man  be  felt 
who  loves  all  men  as  his  brothers,  and  who 


232    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

in  season  and  out,  by  word  and  example,  is 
educating  his  children  to  live  lives  of 
service.  The  careful  teaching  of  religious 
truth  as  found  in  the  life  of  Jesus  Christ 
goes  a  long  way  to  solving  this  as  well  as 
other  difficulties. 

Therefore,  in  schools  which  are  to  sup- 
ply not  only  the  ' '  field  ' '  which  we  have 
spoken  of  in  our  paper  on  "  The  School," 
but  also  the  "  home,"  there  is  manifestly 
a  further  duty,  that  which  is  spiritual. 
These  principles  of  natural  religion  can- 
not be  called  Christian  till  we  bring  in 
the  Person;  till  we  bring  home  to  the 
child's  heart  its  responsibility  to  this  Per- 
son. Right  here  begins  the  distinctive 
work  of  the  Christian  school.  Somehow 
or  other,  the  laws  of  the  school  are  to  be 
so  administered  as  to  commend  themselves 
to  the  children  as  being  in  accord  with  the 
laws  of  God.  To  do  this,  the  Law  of  Love 
must  be  written  beneath  and  above  and 
around  and  all  through  the  law  of  the 
school.  And  this  law  can  be  traced  only 
by  the  human  hand.  The  Person  of  God 
can  be  made  true  and  winning  to  men  and 
children  only  through  the  person  of  man. 
It  is  not  to  bring  God  down  to  the  common 


RELIGION  IN  THE  SCHOOL       233 

life,  but  to  bring  tlie  common  life  up  to  God 
in  such  a  way  as  to  win  each  child  to  the 
realization  of  its  birthright  into  God's 
life. 

This  takes  indeed  a  magical  hand  in  the 
school,  but  a  hand  which  any  humble- 
minded  man  may  claim  as  his,  whose  own 
right  hand  holds  God's,  and  whose  left 
holds  the  child's. 

Let  us  consider  how  such  a  person  goes 
about  his  work  of  making  the  Person  of 
God  attractive  to  the  child.  Though  his 
children  know  intuitively  that  God  is  in 
all  his  thoughts,  they  never  hear  him 
preach  in  the  schoolroom.  There  he  never 
mentions  God  or  Heaven;  his  words  are 
his  own  to  his  own  children.  His  words 
of  appeal  are  to  the  hearts  and  con- 
sciences as  he  knows  them  before  him,  and 
they  ring  true  from  his  own  heart.  The 
wisdom  of  the  serpent  and  the  harmless- 
ness  of  the  dove  call  out  every  device  to 
awaken  the  better  side  of  the  nature  to 
reason  and  to  common-sense,  illustrating 
from  the  daily  life  of  work,  play,  and 
prayer.  He  is  his  children's  friend,  and 
believes  in  them  and  they  in  him.  This  is 
his  opportunity  to  draw  out  all  that  is 


234.    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

best  in  nature  and  whet  the  intellect  and 
the  heart  for  something  higher. 

Therefore,  when  this  man  stands  in  his 
pulpit  in  the  House  of  God,  he  never 
shocks  the  natural  reverence  of  the  child 
by  straight  references  to  schoolroom  or 
playground.  There  the  Life  of  God  is  set 
forth  in  all  Its  majesty  of  saving  power 
and  justice  and  mercy,  in  such  a  way  as  to 
throw  Its  light  on  all  around  and  into 
every  crevice  of  the  heart,  in  such  a  way  as 
to  lead  each  one  to  know  God  and  to  know 
himself  in  all  his  relations  to  God  and  his 
fellow-men.  Parables  of  their  own  lives  at 
work  or  play,  stories  with  hidden  mean- 
ings, parables  of  the  lives  of  rich  and  poor 
in  the  great  world  beyond,  parables  of  the 
purely  spiritual  life  to  come  are  as  plenti- 
ful as  from  the  Great  Teacher  himself,  but 
never  the  pointing  of  the  finger  too  plainly 
at  this  or  that  sore  of  which  all  are 
ashamed;  they  are  only  antagonized  and 
shocked  or  even  amused  by  the  refer- 
ence. *'  He  that  hath  ears  to  hear,  let 
him  hear."  Why  shock  his  ears  to  arouse 
the  wilfully  deaf?  The  Gospel  loses  both 
charm  and  power  when  the  preacher  be- 
comes a  scold.    It  is  not  only  our  colored 


RELIGION  IN  THE  SCHOOL       235 

brethren  that  sneak  out  when  the  hen  roost 
is  mentioned,  nor  only  the  boy  that  laughs 
in  his  sleeve  when  his  "  cribs  "  are  raked 
over. 

Is  it  not  a  plain  inference  that  the  ser- 
mon is  an  intrinsic  part  of  the  service  of 
worship  and  so  should  always  be  primarily 
an  instruction  based  on  the  Scripture  read 
at  such  a  service?  If  this  were  more  ap- 
preciated by  all  preachers,  there  would 
grow  the  habit  of  attention  to  the  Scrip- 
ture, and  also  our  boys  and  girls  and  men 
and  women  would  be  better  instructed 
Christians.  Young  people  are  easily 
^ '  worked  up, ' '  but  just  as  easily  react,  and 
soon  cease  to  be  moved  by  either  oratory 
or  appeals  to  the  feelings.  Whereas  a 
good  instruction  quietly  given,  even  if  it 
is  not  wholly  understood,  does  no  harm, 
and  if  threaded  with  heart  and  good  sense 
and  even  a  shade  of  humor,  is  sure  to  win 
more  and  more  attention  and  to  train  the 
child  to  expect  something  worth  while  and 
so  to  sit  with  the  hearing  ear. 

But  we  must  be  sure,  if  possible,  that 
our  children  are  getting  hold  of  something 
definite.  Therefore,  there  must  be  the 
class  instruction  with  occasion  for  ques- 


236    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

tion  and  answer,  as  well  as  for  examina- 
tion. Now  as  to  this  instruction,  as  in 
every  other,  there  will  be  the  diversity  of 
method,  ran^ng  all  the  way  from  the 
purely  natural  to  the  purely  dogmatic. 
The  Unitarian  proposes  simply  to  open 
the  child's  mind  and  heart  to  experience 
God  in  his  own  character.  With  the  ob- 
jective teaching  of  the  character  of  Jesus 
Christ,  transmitted  to  him  by  the  beautiful 
lives  of  his  teachers,  there  is  no  doubt  that 
the  individual  Unitarian  has  attained  to  a 
great  degree  of  godliness.  It  is  not  worth 
while  here  to  discuss  the  evident  limita- 
tions of  such  a  character  any  more  than  it 
is  worth  while  to  discuss  the  evident  limi- 
tations of  certain  phases  of  the  charac- 
ter of  the  Catholic.  What  we  are  after 
is  to  find  a  way  of  teaching  religion  to 
children  that  is  practical  for  all  kinds 
of  children,  giving  great  scope  to  strong 
individualities  and  at  the  same  time  giving 
all  the  leading  that  human  nature  at  large 
will  always  crave.  There  is  also  in  this 
question  the  same  element  that  we  discover 
in  all  mental  training :  namely,  the  element 
of  faith  as  a  path  or  method  of  thought; 
whether  more   practical   results   are   ob- 


RELIGION  IN  THE  SCHOOL       237 

tained  by  training  the  child  to  accept  with- 
out question  the  results  of  another's  expe- 
rience and  then  to  put  these  accepted  facts 
to  a  practical  test  in  his  own  experience, 
adding  and  subtracting  therefrom  and  giv- 
ing new  interpretations  as  occasion  arises, 
or  rather  by  training  the  child  to  accept 
nothing  beyond  what  it  verifies  itself.  In 
teaching  a  language  or  a  science,  all  agree 
that  the  object  is  to  know  the  language  or 
the  science,  and  as  far  as  methods  go,  the 
grammar  seems  to  be  the  practical  method 
or  path  by  which  the  every-day  child  is 
personally  conducted  to  this  knowledge. 
We  are  training  our  children  to  think  first 
on  lines  laid  down  by  others,  as  a  stimulant 
and  a  safe  guide  to  their  own  thoughts. 
Why  not  the  same  dogmatic  method  in  reli- 
gion? There  can  be  no  real  reason  except 
the  one  boldly  asserted  by  some  teachers : 
namely,  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a 
scienc'^  of  religion.  Nothing  of  impor- 
tance, they  say,  has  been  revealed  to  men 
or  discovered  by  men  that  is  not  revealed 
to  every  man  or  discoverable  by  every 
man.  Or,  to  state  it  in  another  way,  all 
agree  that  the  object  is  to  know  God,  but 
there  is  a  sharp  disagreement  on  the  pos- 


238    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

sibility  of  acquiring  any  part  of  this 
knowledge  as  a  simple  mental  acquire- 
ment. There  is  nothing  to  be  acquired, 
some  say,  but  a  certain  subjective  experi- 
ence which  will  take  care  of  itself  and  find 
its  own  mental  fodder. 

I  respectfully  submit  that  as  a  method 
for  training  children  in  religion  this  has 
been  a  dismal  failure.  The  only  thing  that 
has  saved  the  day  at  all  has  been  the  old 
spirit  of  Orthodoxy  that  has  stalked  like 
an  avenging  ghost  of  Catholicity  through 
the  Protestant  world.  No!  Let  us  be 
frank.  We  do  believe  that  there  is  a 
science  of  Theology  in  the  same  sense  of 
the  word  ' '  Science ' '  as  when  we  speak  of 
Natural  Science.  We  do  believe,  more- 
over, that  God  has  revealed  Himself  to 
man  in  many  ways,  but  most  directly  in 
the  Person  of  Jesus  Christ;  and  we  do, 
therefore,  set  before  us  the  task  of  teach- 
ing our  children  to  know  God  and  Jesus 
Christ  whom  He  has  sent, — to  know  God 
with  all  the  fulness  of  knowledge  that  we 
mean  by  the  Master's  phrase,"  with  all  thy 
heart,  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy 
mind."  And  the  question  is  not,  how  are 
we  to  train  those  few  chosen  souls  who 


RELIGION  IN  THE  SCHOOL       239 

from  birth  and  early  association  have  had 
their  ears  opened  to  this  revelation  and 
take  its  precepts  as  naturally  as  the  born 
musician  takes  music;  but  the  question  is, 
how  are  we  to  train  that  vast  number 
of  young  people  who  take  it  as  a  hardship 
to  learn  anything  that  requires  effort;  and 
while  we  are  doing  this,  not  to  deaden  the 
keen  ear  of  the  religious  genius? 

In  the  first  jjlace,  let  us  dismiss  from 
our  minds  the  fallacy  that  anything  up- 
lifting can  be  learned  without  work  on  the 
part  of  the  child.  And  while  the  teacher 
is  dismissing  this  fallacy,  let  him  not  fall 
into  the  other  of  considering  that  work  is 
helpful  simply  in  the  ratio  of  its  difficulty 
and  distastefulness.  In  the  study  of  theol- 
ogy more  than  in  that  of  any  other  study, 
the  aim  of  the  teacher  is  to  make  hard 
work  a  thing  to  be  desired,  for  the  range 
of  theology  always  embraces  the  heart  and 
soul  as  well  as  the  mind. 

As  to  the  method,  we  have  nothing  new 
to  offer.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  Master's 
method  was  clear  and  sufficient:  first  and 
always,  an  appeal  to  authority;  second, 
**  the  works  that  I  do,"  and,  third,  an  ap- 
peal to  the  result  in  man  himself  of  accept- 


240    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

ing  Him.  Never  was  the  Person  to  be  lost. 
Such  a  method  seems  to  pervade  all  the 
teaching  of  Jesus.  He  Himself  sums  it  up 
in  the  words  of  St.  John  v:19,  20,  21:— 
''  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  the  Son 
can  do  nothing  of  himself,  but  what  he 
seeth  the  Father  do:  for  whatsoever  he 
doeth,  these  also  doetli  the  son  likewise. 
For  the  Father  loveth  the  Son,  and  sheweth 
him  all  things  that  himself  doeth:  and  he 
will  shew  greater  works  than  these,  that  ye 
may  marvel.  For  as  the  Father  raiseth 
up  the  dead  and  quickeneth  them ;  even  so 
the  Son  quickeneth  whom  he  will."  The 
Father,  the  Son,  and  the  quickening  Spirit 
among  men;  Authority,  Personified  in 
Jesus,  quickening  the  life  of  men.  St.  Paul 
but  began  to  demonstrate  the  possibilities 
of  such  a  method  which  has  ever  since  pre- 
vailed wherever  Christ  has  been  truly  and 
fully  taught.  As  he  states  distinctly  in  the 
fifteenth  chapter  of  the  First  Epistle  to  the 
Corinthians:  "I  declare  unto  you  the 
gospel  which  I  preached  unto  you,  which 
also  ye  have  received,  and  wherein  ye 
stand.  .  .  .  For  I  delivered  unto  you  first 
of  all  that  which  I  also  received,  how  that 
Christ  died  for  our  sins  according  to  the 


RELIGION  IN  THE  SCHOOL       241 

scriptures:  and  that  he  was  buried,  and 
that  he  rose  again  the  third  day  according 
to  the  scriptures :  and  that  he  was  seen  of 
Cephas,"  and  so  on  through  a  whole  list 
of  persons,  credible  witnesses  still  alive; 
*'  and  last  of  all  he  was  seen  of  me  also 
as  of  one  born  out  of  due  time;  " — "  last 
of  all;  " — yet  his  own  spiritual  vision  of 
the  risen  Christ  ranked  in  the  same  cate- 
gory with  those  of  the  others  who  saw  Him 
in  the  flesh  with  their  natural  eyes.  And 
then  follows  that  strong  appeal  to  the 
result  of  his  preaching  upon  their  own 
lives. 

''  If  Christ  be  not  risen,  then  is  our 
preaching  vain,  and  your  faith  is  also  vain, 
.  .  .  3^e  are  yet  in  your  sins," — a  straight 
and  bold  appeal,  but  one  that  must  ever 
go  along  as  part  of  the  trinity  of  witness 
to  our  faith  in  God.  So  we  have  to  face 
our  children,  first,  with  authority  to  de- 
liver what  has  been  delivered  to  us;  sec- 
ond, with  our  own  personal  witness  to  the 
verity  of  what  we  teach  plainly  evident 
in  our  lives ;  and,  third,  with  the  wise  and 
convincing  appeal  to  their  own  experience. 
Let  us  not  be  misunderstood  to  teach  that 
true  faith  arises  by  the  accumulation  of  a 


242    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

multitude  of  particulars  in  experience ;  not 
at  all ;  it  rather  grows  from  a  root  of  vital 
intercourse,  such  as  we  have  tried  to  out- 
line. All  this  seems  undeniable,  though 
the  history  of  Christian  teaching  has 
shown  wide  divergence  in  its  application. 
Yet  I  venture  to  say  that  no  good  and  last- 
ing results  have  ever  been  attained  where 
the  balance  of  this  trinity  of  witnesses  has 
been  neglectd. 

The  question  for  us  is,  therefore,  how 
best  can  we  maintain  this  balance  in  teach- 
ing theology  to  the  child  ?  We  surely  have 
something  to  hand  down;  not  merely  the 
sacred  writings  with  their  wide  applica- 
tion to  all  life,  not  merely  that  application 
made  in  the  Person  of  Jesus  Christ,  as 
worked  out  from  a  study  of  His  historical 
life,  but  also  the  application  of  all  God's 
Word  as  personified  in  Jesus  and  as  lived 
by  men  in  the  world  from  the  days  of  St. 
Paul  to  this  day,  ''  Jesus  risen  from  the 
dead  and  alive  for  evermore,"  alive  now  in 
the  hearts  of  believers.  We  have  a  priceless 
heritage  slowly  and  painfully  accumulated 
during  all  these  centuries,  consisting  not 
only  of  the  visions  of  those  few  hundred 
men  in  Palestine,  but  now  also  of  many 


RELIGION  IN  THE  SCHOOL       243 

millions,  handed  down  to  us  in  words  of 
prayer  and  praise  and  action.  This  life, 
this  quickening  power  of  the  Spirit  among 
men,  has  from  time  to  time  taken  shape  not 
only  in  the  lives  of  Saints  so  suitable  for 
children  to  read,  but  it  has  flowed,  as  it 
were,  into  forms  of  speech  and  action. 
These  forms,  like  our  Book  of  Common 
Prayer,  have  been  handed  from  one  gen- 
eration to  another  as  sacred  vessels  to  be 
kept  full  and  ever  garnished  into  new 
beauty. 

When  I  give  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer  into  the  hands  of  my  child  without 
teaching  him  how  to  use  it,  I  might  as 
well  give  a  lump  of  gold  without  teaching 
him  how  to  use  that. 

How  shall  I  begin  this  teaching?  The 
book  itself  gives  me  the  clue,  in  what  is 
called  the  Catechism.  Now  the  Catechism 
is  nothing  but  simple  dogma,  the  simplest 
and  most  concise  form  of  the  collected 
truths  of  the  ages,  put  into  shape  to  hand 
on  from  one  child  generation  to  another. 
As  we  all  know,  the  child  has  little^  power 
of  reason  or  of  the  philosophical  faculty 
necessar^^  to  evolve  or  fix  in  mind  princi- 
ples worked  out  from  the  Life  of  our  Lord 


U4,    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

or  from  the  lives  of  history.  We  do  not 
give  as  a  lesson  to  be  learned  by  the  child 
the  account  of  its  father's  or  mother's  life, 
or  even  of  that  of  some  great  ancestor. 
They  learn  the  results  of  these  lives  by 
living  ivith  them  or  with  what  they  have 
produced.  We  say  to  the  child  "  Thou 
shalt  "  or  ''  Thou  shalt  not  "  on  our  own 
authority,  thus  training  the  conscience  and 
habits  of  thought  and  action  by  simple 
dogma ;  and  then,  as  the  reason  and  under- 
standing expand,  we  win  both  and  set  high 
ideals  by  stories  of  great  men  and  pri- 
marily of  the  Saviour  of  men.  Is  not  this 
the  accredited  method  all  through  all 
branches  of  education?  First,  to  make  all 
possible  use  of  the  memory  and  the  plia- 
bility of  youth,  and  gradually,  more  and 
more,  to  bring  in  the  training  of  the  rea- 
son and  the  constructive  faculty.  In  their 
religious  instruction,  the  Apostles  were 
eminently  dogmatic.  And  with  all  our 
advance,  human  nature  seems  to  require 
and  expect  the  same  general  leading  from 
those  who  know. 

The  Catechism  is  indeed  wonderful  in 
its  simplicity,  in  its  breadth,  in  its  direct- 
ness, and  in  its  adaptability  to  the  young, 


RELIGION  IN  THE  SCHOOL       245 

as  an  introduction  to  the  fuller  teaching 
of  the  Prayer  Book.  Let  it  stand  verbatim 
in  the  memory  as  a  background  and  guide 
to  all  that  is  to  come.  Scripture  story, 
hymns,  and  parables  from  nature  provide 
endless  illustration.  But  the  Saviour's 
life  set  as  a  lesson  tends  to  vulgarize  what 
should  ever  be  treated  with  the  greatest 
reverence.  This  Life  is  the  natural  light 
along  the  road.  The  road  without  it  is 
dreary  indeed,  as  the  light  without  the 
road  serves  but  to  dazzle  the  sight  and 
block  advance. 

Let  us  then  have  a  plain  and  distinct 
line  of  teaching  from  the  beginning,  to 
serve  not  as  a  wall  to  circumscribe  thought 
and  action,  but  as  a  path  to  lead  straight 
on  into  that  paradise  of  God's  love  where 
each  must  explore  treasures  for  himself. 
Dogma,  then,  is  not  to  be  a  curtailment 
of  individual  freedom,  but  a  safe  and  well- 
tried  road  to  lead  to  the  widest  possible 
freedom.  The  Catechism  treats  in  the 
most  straightforward  way  of  the  funda- 
mental truths  of  God's  dealing  with  men. 
Beginning  with  His  choice  of  the  child  to 
be  His  child  and  the  receiver  of  His  Life, 
at  once  it  calls  for  faith,  and  trains  con- 


246    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

tinually  by  dogmatic  teacliing  that  natural 
gift  of  faith  so  strong  in  the  child  to  prin- 
ciples of  action  and  prayer  and  sacrament. 
The  memory  at  its  most  susceptible  age 
is  stored  with  simple  forms  of  expression 
that,  lightened  by  Bible  illustrations  and 
parables  of  daily  life,  give  the  child  just 
the  necessary  stimulant  and  guide  to  its 
own  thoughts.  The  dogma  alone  is  sure 
to  lead  to  disaster,  but  the  dogma  repre- 
senting the  authority,  personified  in  the 
living  teacher,  and  fitted  with  his  living 
hand  to  the  living  child  before  him,  is  sure 
to  produce  thinking  men  and  women  able 
to  give  a  reason  for  the  faith  that  is  in 
them. 

Very  soon  the  child  begins  to  use  its  own 
Prayer  Book  and  takes  its  own  intelligent 
part  in  the  common  worship.  When  the 
Catechism  is  thoroughly  committed  to 
memory,  and  from  time  to  time  short 
verses  of  Scripture  or  of  hymns  added  by 
way  of  illustration,  the  next  memoriter  ex- 
ercise is  the  Collect  or  short  prayer  which 
sums  up  the  Gospel  lesson  of  each  Sunday. 
Here  again  the  greatest  care  should  be 
taken  to  avoid  the  tediousness  of  mere  for- 
mality.   If  the  teacher  cannot  or  will  not 


EELIGION  IN  THE  SCHOOL       247 

find  the  spirit  of  the  lesson  and  make  tlie 
words  of  the  prayer  his  own  so  that  he  can 
give  something  of  it  in  a  simple  and  at- 
tractive way  to  the  child,  let  him  not  think 
that  husks  will  taste  any  better  to  the  child 
than  to  himself.  The  effort  in  private  and 
in  public  is  to  teach  the  child  to  pray,  to 
speak  to  God  in  God's  language.  The  talks 
on  the  Collects  between  the  teacher  and  the 
child  provide  fruitful  ground  for  such 
teaching,  and  give  occasion  for  instruction 
in  private  prayer. 

Then  as  to  the  common  worship,  how 
well  some  of  us  remember  the  dreary 
hours  of  our  childhood  spent  in  what 
seemed  a  meaningless  restraint !  And,  too, 
some  of  us  remember  how  even  a  dumb 
reverence  grew  ux)on  us  in  the  long  hour, 
simply  through  the  close  proximity  of  one 
we  loved  evidently  filled  with  something 
we  did  not  understand.  And  further, 
how  changed  sometimes  the  whole  process 
would  become  by  the  strong  personality 
of  some  leader!  Now  these  dumb  hours 
seem  to  me  a  great  mistake.  Much  of  the 
irreligion  of  men  and  women  has  come 
straight  from  these  horrors  of  childhood. 
It  is  a  very  simple  matter  to  modify  our 


248    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

public  worship  to  the  understanding  and 
powers  of  the  child.  When  the  Bible  is  so 
full  of  interest,  why  ever  read  before  a 
body  of  boys  a  long,  uninteresting  chapter 
from  the  Old  Testament  or  even  some  of 
the  chapters  from  the  Epistles  that  convey 
absolutely  nothing  to  the  average  boy"? 
Why  indeed,  except  it  be  to  train  the  child 
in  ways  of  inattention!  A  school  should 
have  great  liberty  in  the  arrangement  of 
its  services,  in  order  to  train  its  children 
to  a  hearty  response  and  reverent  partici- 
pation in  all  parts  of  the  worship. 

The  Holy  Communion  is  ever  to  be  held 
before  children  as  the  crown  of  common 
worship,  and  their  anticipations  of  their 
own  part  in  that  service  should  ever  be 
kept  alive.  To  a  reverent  child  occasional 
attendance  at  this  service  in  the  presence 
of  devout  communicants  is  a  great  stimu- 
lus, I  am  sure,  to  its  own  devotion;  but 
the  practice  of  what  is  called  by  some  non- 
communicating  attendance,  and  by  others 
Eucharistic  Worship,  seems  to  me  out  of 
tune  with  the  robustness  and  sincerity  of 
our  whole  Anglican  system.  The  line  of 
teaching  and  practice  is  clearly  laid  down 
in  our  book  of  Common  Prayer,  and  loy- 


RELIGION  IN  THE  SCHOOL       249 

alty  to  this  is  both  practical  and  wise. 
Here  we  have  distinctly  enforced  the  prin- 
ciple of  true  worship:  namely,  after  due 
self-examination,  confession,  and  prayer, 
in  conjunction  with  the  memorial  of  the 
Sacrifice  of  Christ,  the  offering  of  our- 
selves, our  souls  and  bodies,  to  be  a  rea- 
sonable, holy,  and  living  sacrifice  unto  God. 
Here  formality,  carelessness,  and  hypoc- 
risy are  brought  face  to  face  with  the  real- 
ity of  the  threefold  witness  of  God,  and  are 
shown  their  true  relation  to  this  witness 
in  unmistakable  signs  of  life  or  death. 
One's  experience  in  school  and  out  of 
school  all  goes  to  prove  the  reliability  of 
the  faithful  communicant. 

Children,  in  order  to  become  and  remain 
faithful  communicants,  need  continual 
teaching,  leading  them  on  step  by  step  to 
a  fuller  appreciation  of  the  greatness  of 
the  sacrifice  which  God  requires  of  them  in 
return  for  the  perfectness  of  His  One  Sac- 
rifice. Special  hours  of  preparation  for 
the  Holy  Communion,  with  definite  instruc- 
tion both  in  public  and  private,  are  an 
absolute  necessity  to  start  our  children  on 
healthy  growth  into  Christian  life. 

Moreover,    the    wise    teacher    will    not 


250    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

shrink  from  the  personal  sympathy  and 
direct  fatherly  counsel  where  it  is  mani- 
festly needed.  Great  personal  purity  and 
sincerity  are  an  absolute  requisite  for  this 
close  personal  touching  of  souls,  else  un- 
told harm  may  result.  But  the  wise  teacher 
will  shrink  from  what  is  called  Sacra- 
mental Confession.  A  long  experience 
with  boys  coming  from  all  kinds  of  homes, 
under  all  sorts  of  religious  influences, 
leads  me  to  be  very  sceptical  as  to  the  wis- 
dom of  this  form  of  dealing  with  the  souls 
of  American  boys  at  school.  Again  the 
great  wisdom  of  our  book  of  Common 
Prayer  is  evident:  it  is  only  in  the  office 
for  the  visitation  of  the  sick,  when  mind 
and  body  are  both  less  active,  that  the 
priest  is  directed  to  use  his  power  of  Ab- 
solution after  private  definite  confession. 
Religion  in  the  School,  thus  beginning 
with  the  teacher  and  ending  with  the 
teacher,  has  its  beautiful  and  inspiring 
echo  in  the  hearty  rendering  of  the  com- 
mon worship  of  prayer,  praise,  and  thanks- 
giving, in  psalms  and  hymns  and  spiritual 
songs,  making  melody  in  all  hearts.  Music ! 
Oh,  surpassingly  wonderful  Music!  How 
divine  thy  power  to  lift  earthly  man  to  the 


RELIGION  IN  THE  SCHOOL        251 

very  doors  of  Heaven !  No  words  are  too 
strong  or  too  beautiful  for  thy  wings.  We 
have  seen  hard  men  weep  at  sound  of  thy 
voice,  and  weak  women  become  strong 
under  thy  spell,  and  great  crowds  of 
happy,  careless  boys  sobered  and  carried 
with  reverent,  adoring  hearts  to  kneel  be- 
fore God's  altar. 

Is  this  the  end!  Not  yet.  The  boy  be- 
comes a  man ;  and  how  is  he  to  be  prepared 
to  meet  not  only  the  moral  temptations  of 
life,  but  the  movement  of  the  worldly 
thought  as  it  is  going  on  to-day?  As  the 
whole  school-life  must  tend  to  build  up  his 
moral  character,  to  send  him  out,  as  far 
as  may  be,  a  man  in  moral  strength,  so  our 
religious  instruction  must  aim  to  send  him 
out  first  with  religious  convictions ;  and, 
second,  with  the  equipment  to  win  more 
convictions  for  himself. 

Let  us  be  sure  that  we  do  not  let  the 
boy  go  from  our  doors  as  a  mere  inquirer. 
' '  We  are  not  a  society  of  inquirers,  but  a  so- 
ciety of  men  of  conviction,"  has  been  well 
said  by  the  Bishop  of  Stepney.  We  have 
a  possession  and  a  heritage  which  it  is  the 
most  arrant  folly  to  abandon  or  to  give 
our  children   an  excuse   for  abandoning. 


252    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

The  boy  goes  out  from  his  school  ready 
to  speak  with  no  uncertain  sound  of  the 
surety  of  the  historical  facts  of  his  reli- 
gion ;  with  no  uncertain  sound  of  the  great 
corporate  ever-accumulating  experience  of 
the  Christian  Church,  as  demonstrated  in 
the  secret  recesses  of  the  human  soul  and 
shared  by  all  kinds  of  men  of  every  age 
and  nation,  an  experience  too  old,  too  deep, 
too  wide  to  be  explained  away;  with  no 
uncertain  sound  of  the  practical  applica- 
tion of  the  truths  of  his  religion  to  the 
present  needs  of  himself  and  of  every  sane 
man  and  of  the  great  brotherhood  of  man. 
He  will  not  be  afraid  of  the  truths  of 
science:  he  treats  them  with  respect,  for 
he  knows  that  when  they  have  proved 
themselves  to  be  true,  the  interpretation  of 
religious  dogma  will  be  sounder  and  more 
practical,  as  it  has  proved  to  be  all  through 
these  advancing  centuries  of  the  Christian 
era.  He  will  not  be  afraid  of  historical 
criticism,  for  he  respects  all  true  scholar- 
ship and  hails  all  proven  facts  as  allies 
to  strengthen  in  the  future  what  they  have 
always  strengthened  in  the  past,  the  faith 
once  delivered.  He  will  not  be  afraid  with 
his  great  heritage  to  join  hand  in  hand 


RELIGION  IN  THE  SCHOOL       253 

wi til  Jews,  Turks,  infidels,  and  heretics  in  all 
that  goes  to  the  uplifting  of  his  fellow-men 
and  to  making  this  world  a  better  place  to 
live  in,  for  he  knows  that 

"  The  Earth  is  the  Lord's,  and  all  they 
that  dwell  therein." 


XII 

COLLEGE 

A  DISTINGUISHED  college  president 
,  is  reported  to  have  said  to  a  distin- 
guished head-master,  ''  I  wish  that  you 

and  your  wife  would  come  down  to  

and  look  after  your  boys." 

Just  so!  Boys  fresh  from  our  homes 
and  from  our  home-schools  need  looking 
after;  they  miss  that  personal  friendship 
and  fellowship  with  high-souled  men  and 
women  which  is  their  due.  If  there  ever  is 
a  time  when  a  boy  needs  such  influence,  it 
is  between  the  ages  of  seventeen  and 
twenty-two,  as  he  is  passing  from  boyhood 
to  manhood. 

But  what  is  our  plan!  These  young 
fellows,  full  of  the  first  rush  of  virility,  are 
herded  together, — no,  not  even  that, — are 
allowed  to  herd  themselves  together  in 
great  and  luxurious  dormitories  and  in 
small  eating  clubs  behind  closed  doors, 
with  none  of  the  natural  restraints  of  the 

254 


COLLEGE  255 

society  of  their  elders,  often  with  not  the 
smallest  recognition,  on  the  part  of  the 
college,  of  any  responsibility  for  those  es- 
sential habits  of  a  man's  life  which  are 
just  then  taking  shape. 

The  same  distinguished  president  has 
taken  pains,  from  time  to  time,  to  have 
prepared  tables  of  statistics  comparing  the 
results  of  entrance  examinations  and  the 
subsequent  college  careers  of  boys  from 
high  schools  with  those  of  boys  from  what 
purport  to  be  home-schools,  or,  more  par- 
ticularly, boarding  schools  under  church 
influence. 

On  their  face,  such  statistics  are  entirely 
misleading:  first,  because  only  the  best 
high-school  boys,  while  nearly  all  from 
these  boarding  schools,  try  for  college; 
and,  second,  because  statistics  of  examina- 
tions and  behavior  are  by  no  means  the 
final  word  as  to  a  boy's  career  at  the  col- 
lege or  university.  None  know  this  better 
than  the  boys  at  College,  who,  as  they 
grow  there  into  manhood  and  have  a  fair 
view  of  the  whole  system  from  the  inside, 
are  going  home  in  increasing  numbers  to 
send  their  brothers  and  sons  to  the  well- 
ordered  home-school. 


256    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

We  suppose,  also,  that  the  authorities 
of  our  universities  are  as  fully  alive  to  the 
real  truth  as  ourselves,  despite  statistics; 
there  are  abundant  signs  that  these  gen- 
tlemen are  not  perfectly  satisfied  with  the 
cumbrous  development  of  the  American 
college  into  the  American  university.  Ef- 
forts are  not  wanting  all  along  the  line  to 
bring  order  out  of  chaos  in  the  direction  of 
personal  supervision  and  fellowship  owed 
by  the  older  to  the  younger  in  the  whole 
process  of  education. 

The  American  college  was  naturally  the 
outgrowth  of  the  American  school,  and  the 
school  of  the  American  home.  Parents 
in  America,  perhaps  more  than  in  any 
other  land,  have  felt  and  carried  the 
responsibility  of  fellowship  with  their 
children.  We  use  this  word  advisedly,  for 
no  one  will  claim  that  we,  as  a  nation,  have 
shown  in  our  home-life  any  great  desire 
for  the  careful  training  of  our  children. 
On  the  contrary,  at  a  very  early  age  the 
child  in  our  land  has  the  run  of  the  streets, 
as  well  as  the  run  of  his  home,  and  he 
develops  a  power  of  taking  care  of  him- 
self that  is  amazing  to  the  foreigner.  Yet 
there  are  homes  in  America  where  the  chil- 


COLLEGE  257 

dren  are  treated  as  children,  and,  both  by 
fellowship  and  by  authority,  are  guarded 
in  their  earlier  years  from  the  roughness  of 
life ;  homes  where  care  is  taken  to  develop 
the  fine  traits  of  childhood,  reverence,  obe- 
dience, and  the  power  of  the  imagination 
with  the  appreciation  of  beauty  in  all  its 
forms, — those  very  qualities  which  are 
early  knocked  out  of  the  street  child. 
There  are  still  some  parents  in  America 
who  are  not  willing  to  sacrifice  the  broader 
and  fuller  and  so  slower  development  of 
their  children  to  a  precocious  so-called 
manliness,  and  who  think  that  a  truer  and 
stronger  manhood  depends  on  something 
else  than  ''  learning  to  take  care  of  one- 
self." 

The  average  American  boy,  however, 
when  he  comes  to  the  college  age,  is  a  man 
in  knowing  how  to  take  care  of  himself 
and  in  knowing  the  necessity  laid  upon 
him  to  make  the  most  of  his  time.  But 
does  the  College  owe  nothing  to  this  im- 
poverished life,  as  well  as  to  that  of  the 
big  boy,  in  the  way  of  personal  contact 
with  men  whose  love  and  enthusiasm  may 
still  give  him  what  otherwise  he  will  proba- 
bly never  get  unless  he  marries  a  large- 


258    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

hearted,  fine  woman?  But,  alas!  she,  too, 
may  be  college  bred,  brought  up  in  the 
same  American  (?)  way.  I  must  confess 
that  personally  I  am  awfully  disappointed 
at  this  typical  product  of  the  American 
college,  whether  of  man  or  woman.  Their 
world  is  one  of  the  survival  of  the  small 
things  of  life,  with  much  of  the  fuller  and 
finer  side  entirely  blotted  out.  The  fit- 
test will  not  always  survive  amid  uncon- 
genial surroundings.  Surely  it  is  the  part 
of  education  from  beginning  to  end  to  pro- 
vide soil  for  the  growth  of  the  best  things 
in  man. 

To  return  to  the  tables  of  statistics 
above  mentioned:  they  take  no  account  of 
the  vast  waste  that  goes  on  under  a  sys- 
tem which  ignores  so  much  to  the  exalta- 
tion of  mere  pluck  and  hardihood.  The 
tables  for  this  waste  are  found  in  the 
hearts  of  our  settlement  workers  and 
lonely  priests  in  orders  and  out  of  orders, 
who  rise  in  protest  against  an  education 
that  seeks  to  measure  itself  by  written  ex- 
aminations and  a  money  value,  in  protest 
against  an  education  that  does  not  pro- 
claim the  whole  truth,  in  protest  against 
an  education  that  in  any  way  tends  to 


COLLEGE  259 

divorce  the  apparent  good  of  the  individual 
from  his  usefuhiess  to  the  community. 

In  this  land  of  liberty,  it  seems,  the  final 
battle  between  light  and  darkness  is  to  be 
fought  out,  and,  in  view  of  this,  our  land 
can  ill  afford  to  have  her  children  grow  up 
in  comparative  ignorance  of  the  relative 
values  of  truth  and  falsehood,  of  love  and 
hatred,  of  purity  and  lust,  of  patriotism 
and  individualism;  of  the  relative  values 
of  life  and  the  meat  of  life,  of  the  body 
and  the  raiment.  Lectures  and  courses 
in  college  will  never  teach  these  rela- 
tions, the  knowledge  of  which  is  the  only 
true  wisdom.  It  certainly  is  a  disgrace- 
ful fact  that  so  many  of  our  young  men 
get  a  more  true  and  helpful  education 
in  four  years  of  the  rough  life  of  a  miner 's 
camp,  or  even  in  a  business  house,  than  in 
the  same  four  years  at  college.  Why? 
Because  any  natural  struggle  with  the  real 
forces  of  nature  and  of  man  comes  nearer 
to  impressing  on  a  man  the  true  relation 
of  things  than  the  exotic  life  of  our  large 
American  university.  The  wisdom  em- 
bodied in  the  knowledge  of  the  relation 
of  man  to  man,  of  man  to  the  rest  of  crea- 
tion as  well  as  to  the  Creator  Himself,  can 


260    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

come  finally  only  through  close  personal 
touch  with  men  and  things.  That  is  the 
way  we  are  made.  Life  passes  on  only 
through  personal  touch,  and  without  this, 
it  is  sure  to  waste  and  decay. 

Two  men,  well  known  in  their  respective 
professions,  were  talking  over  college 
days,  and  one  said  to  the  other: 

'^  Well,  Bill,  after  all,  what  we  got  at 
college  came  mostly  through  old  Tom.  He 
was  great." 

Let  any  mature  man  look  back  on  what 
is  called  his  education,  and  the  chances  are 
he  will  say  the  same  of  some  friend  of  his 
youth.  It  is,  after  all,  the  men  that  we  get 
to  know  in  those  days  who  start  us  on 
our  ways  with  faces  set  to  the  light. 

In  the  plan  now  being  developed  in  our 
large  colleges  and  universities,  such  a  per- 
sonal relation  between  instructors  and 
undergraduates  is  largely  chance.  No  tu- 
torial system  developed  in  this  country, 
so  far  as  the  writer  knows,  approximates 
in  value  to  the  system  of  the  English  uni- 
versity. This  is  what  may  be  called  the 
natural  or  home  system  carried  from  the 
great  public  school.  And  is  there  any- 
thing in  this  system  that  makes  it,  in  prin- 


COLLEGE  2G1 

ciple,  unsuited  to  our  American  life?  On 
the  contrary,  it  seems  to  tlie  writer  to  sup- 
ply the  very  thing  that  we  most  need  in  our 
American  education:  namely,  a  stronger 
personal  element,  a  closer  relation  between 
teacher  and  student. 

The  small  college  of  an  English  Uni- 
versity, with  its  dormitories,  dining-hall, 
and  chapel,  organized  under  a  head  with 
assistants  and  graduates  all  living  to- 
gether in  a  natural  way,  makes  it  possible 
and  convenient  for  every  undergraduate 
to  be  on  intimate  terms  with  older  men 
who  are  directly  responsible  for  him,  while 
the  great  life  of  the  University  pervades 
the  whole  and  tends  to  break  down  sec- 
tional and  sectarian  prejudices. 

If  we  examine  the  lists  of  the  world's 
great  men,  we  find  very  few  who  have  not 
developed  on  lines  quite  different  from 
those  of  the  large  American  university  or 
college.  Indeed,  it  is  surprising  how  com- 
paratively few  of  the  most  useful  men  of 
our  own  land,  either  in  letters  or  science  or 
affairs,  have  had  what  is  called  the  ad- 
vantage of  coming  from  one  of  our  large 
universities.  Not  so  in  England;  their 
great  leaders  in  all  departments  of  life  are 


262    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

mostly  university  men.  And  we  are  con- 
strained to  confess  that  for  general  schol- 
arship and  usefulness  the  world  has  never 
yet  produced  such  a  race  of  men  as  the 
university-trained  Englishmen. 

Now,  is  it  too  late  for  us  to  organize  our 
colleges  and  universities  more  on  the  lines 
of  persona]  fellowship  between  older  and 
younger  men?  I  believe  not.  Much  can 
be  done  at  once  to  infuse  more  of  this 
element. 

To  begin  with  the  entrance  examina- 
tion, that  which  strikes  the  school-master 
straight  between  the  eyes:  the  personal 
element  in  the  school  should  follow  the  boy 
through  and  beyond  this  examination  in 
the  shape  of  a  general  certificate  of  fit- 
ness from  his  school.  If  the  university 
could  make  it  practical  to  lay  a  great  deal 
of  stress  upon  this  certificate,  and  then 
take  the  trouble  to  publish  the  records  of 
boys  admitted  to  college,  and  also  the  rec- 
ords of  graduates,  all  listed  according  to 
their  preparatory  schools,  it  would  not 
only  open  the  eyes  of  schoolmasters  to 
possible  defects  in  their  methods  in  a  very 
effective  way,  but  it  would  have  a  tend- 
ency to  lay  more  stress  on  the  personal 


COLLEGE  263 

factor  throngliOTit.  Open  discussion  of 
such  full  statistics  would  be  sure  to  have  a 
beneficial  result. 

The  standard  of  entrance  struck  between 
the  papers  done  by  a  boy  and  the  estimate 
of  his  preparedness  in  character  and  schol- 
arship from  his  school  would  gradually 
tend  to  draw  attention  to  the  most  im- 
portant requisites  for  a  successful  course 
in  college. 

Furthermore,  is  it  not  possible  to  make 
the  papers  in  all  subjects  more  an  exami- 
nation of  the  man  and  less  an  examination 
simply  of  his  knowledge  of  facts'?  More 
an  examination  of  his  scholarship  than 
of  his  memory?  To  be  more  specific,  why 
set  papers  in  mathematics  that  examine 
almost  solely  a  boy's  memory  and  his 
power  to  do  fairly  accurate  figuring,  when 
everybody  knows  that  the  test  of  his 
mathematical  scholarship  is  his  power  to 
solve  problems  and  exercises  that  involve 
all  the  principles  and  methods  covered  in 
his  work? 

Why  set  papers  in  English  that  require 
a  certain  kind  of  technical  cramming  of 
the  great  English  classics  that  generally 
spoils  any  real  appetite  for  their  beauty, 


264    PERSONALITY  IN  EDUCATION 

when  all  that  is  really  required  is  that  a 
boy  should  be  able  to  write  and  speak 
his  own  language  in  a  scholarly  way?  An 
hour's  essay,  and  a  few  minutes'  oral  de- 
scription of  some  event  would  provide  an 
ample  test  of  such  ability. 

The  writer  remembers  very  well  the  ex- 
aminations set  by  his  old  school-master  on 
advanced  school  work  in  Latin  and  Greek. 
They  were  marked  by  careful  selections  in 
composition  and  translations  that  gave 
occasion  for  a  full  display  of  one's  ability 
in  handling  the  language.  And  the  ques- 
tions put  on  the  paper  invariably  required 
thought  as  well  as  knowledge  in  order  to 
answer  them  satisfactorily;  and  they  were 
formed  in  such  a  way  as  to  bring  out  a 
great  deal  more  than  what  lay  on  the 
surface.  And  as  to  the  examinations  in 
foreign  living  languages,  let  them  not  be 
lowered  to  the  dead  level  of  grammar  and 
translation,  but  require  some  oral  work 
that  will  test  pronunciation  and  facility  in 
speech. 

In  the  second  place,  it  is  not  too  late 
for  our  colleges  and  universities  in  coun- 
try towns  to  begin  to  develop  more  on  the 
English  jjlan  of  separate  families  directly 


COLLEGE  265 

under  the  personal  influence  of  wise  and 
experienced  men.  Princeton  is  doing  much 
to  clear  the  air  of  fog  on  this  important 
question.  The  West  and  Middle  West 
have  ample  opportunity  to  make  use  of  all 
that  we  have  hammered  out  here  in  the 
East,  and  some  of  their  young  universities 
are  laid  down  on  such  broad  lines  as  to 
insure  a  saner  life  for  their  manhood  and 
age  than  seems  possible  now  to  obtain  in 
Harvard  or  Yale  without  great  expense 
and  uprooting  of  tradition. 

Mr.  Ehodes  has  started  the  shuttle 
across  the  Atlantic  on  a  new  garment.  The 
examinations  set  for  his  scholarships,  and 
the  residence  of  so  many  of  our  best 
young  men  in  Oxford,  are  surely  weaving 
into  our  garment  of  education  some  fair, 
strong  thread  from  the  looms  of  the  old 
land.  Every  teacher  is  watching  the  ex- 
periment with  interest,  and  we  are  expect- 
ing far-reaching  results  from  a  plan  which 
seeks  to  break  into  the  wholesale  factory 
for  scholars  with  a  new  article  marked 
"  personal." 

THE   END 


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